Pedants' Delight
I was pleased to discover Punctuation Station which is written by someone who clearly shares my love of getting the apostrophe in the right place.
In another life I was a secondary-school teacher of English and I was pretty good at teaching about apostrophes.
I would patiently go on and on at my poor classes until their brains rattled and they pleaded for mercy. They may have hated me, but they could all spell business and necessary and February and they could all put apostrophes in the right place.
Business and necessary and February are words that most of my classes seemed to get wrong and I became so bored of correcting them that I would leap on some poor teenager and make him or her spell one of them in the middle of a lesson about something else.
"So, in the first act of A Midsummer Night's Dream the month is not February but if the play did happen to take place in February then how would we spell it, Michelle?" - - -
Yes, yes, I know, I know. It's a whole separate language called Schoolteacher, and I was fluent in it.
Last week I was unexpectedly called upon to teach a class of adults about things which, in medical roleplays, might be included in feedback to medical students. Body language, questioning styles, that kind of thing.
I had a flipchart! I had a felt-tip pen! It wasn't quite the old chalk-and-talk, but it was very nearly that.
"I'm an old-fashioned schoolteacher!" I shouted at them joyfully in my Schoolteacher Voice as I stepped in front of them. "Sit up straight, and if you have chewing-gum, get rid of it NOW!"
I could see them all straighten up, and then remember that they weren't actually in school, and then self-consciously slump slightly back down again.
It was quite fun to get suggestions from all of them and assemble a long list on my flipchart in my neatest roundest writing. It reminded me of how teaching could be fun.
I'm glad I don't have to do it every day in a school, though.
In another life I was a secondary-school teacher of English and I was pretty good at teaching about apostrophes.
I would patiently go on and on at my poor classes until their brains rattled and they pleaded for mercy. They may have hated me, but they could all spell business and necessary and February and they could all put apostrophes in the right place.
Business and necessary and February are words that most of my classes seemed to get wrong and I became so bored of correcting them that I would leap on some poor teenager and make him or her spell one of them in the middle of a lesson about something else.
"So, in the first act of A Midsummer Night's Dream the month is not February but if the play did happen to take place in February then how would we spell it, Michelle?" - - -
Yes, yes, I know, I know. It's a whole separate language called Schoolteacher, and I was fluent in it.
Last week I was unexpectedly called upon to teach a class of adults about things which, in medical roleplays, might be included in feedback to medical students. Body language, questioning styles, that kind of thing.
I had a flipchart! I had a felt-tip pen! It wasn't quite the old chalk-and-talk, but it was very nearly that.
"I'm an old-fashioned schoolteacher!" I shouted at them joyfully in my Schoolteacher Voice as I stepped in front of them. "Sit up straight, and if you have chewing-gum, get rid of it NOW!"
I could see them all straighten up, and then remember that they weren't actually in school, and then self-consciously slump slightly back down again.
It was quite fun to get suggestions from all of them and assemble a long list on my flipchart in my neatest roundest writing. It reminded me of how teaching could be fun.
I'm glad I don't have to do it every day in a school, though.
posted by Daphne at 11:43 pm
3 Comments:
And I have to say Daphne, that those words and others like them are drilled into primary pupils too. I think sometimes they have a brain transplant between primary and secondary school. :)
There are a few words I still struggle to spell (I can't remember them off-hand). No matter how many times I re-learn the correct spelling, it evades me the next time I have to spell it.
I told you I was an English teacher in Japan right? Thankfully that was mostly conversational English. I still find English grammar (doubly so the teaching of it) very confusing.
I'm using an old post of yours to give you this news. My new blog is: http://bunnyblog.890m.com/
Rather you didn't reference me yet on your blogroll; I'm trying to keep a low profile (long story).
Come on over and get back in touch.
Bun
PS This may look like a spam comment but it isn't! Probs best if you delete this after reading it.
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