Friday, October 29, 2010

Saturday, 30 October, 2010: A2 Class

In this lesson, we read an email in our textbook from Grace about her summer job.  Some vocabulary from this lesson is:

theme park --> an amusement park (the park with the roller coaster, ferris wheel, and tilt-a-whirl)
entrance --> where you entre a building, market, park, museum, etc.  If you have to pay a fee to enter, the entrance is where you will pay (Tugsbayer suggested it might be KACC in Mongolian, and Ithink that's possible, because that is where you pay, but I wonder if KACC might just mean something like "cashier")
gift shop --> where you can buy souvenirs and gifts to remember a place you visited (such as an amusement park, a museum, etc)
cheerful --> very happy and positive all the time
outgoing --> not shy; not afraid to meet and talk to people
opening remarks (in a letter or email) --> the things we say at the beginning of an email or letter when we are just starting to write
closing remarks (in a letter or email) --> the things we say at the end of an email or letter when we are finishing up and about to end it.

Below are a few images of amusement parks and popuplar amusement park rides:

An amusement park

Ferris Wheel

Merry-go-round

Roller Coaster (in Marie's Home Town!)

Swing of the Century

Swing of the Century

Viking Ship

Marie's Favourite-- the Tilt-A-Whirl

Saturday, 30 October, 2010: A1 Class

This was the class in which we were all supposed to bring in special photos and share a story about them.  Only half the class brought in pictures, but that's okay, because I made the rest of the students tell a story or answer an open-ended question about themselves, so we all had a chance to speak.  Some vocabulary that came up in this class was:

Octoberfest --> a German holiday that involves drinking a lot of beer.
spelling bee --> a spelling competition
spelling celebration --> a Mongolian celebration when a child learns his or her ABCs
about/around --> we can say "about" or "around" to talk about approximate age, eg. I was about two in this picture.  We stop receiving gifts for children's day when we are around eighteen.
teenager --> someone who is between thirteen and nineteen years old
trend --> something that happens alot; something that is cool to do
vacation --> a holiday
sausages --> meat which is linked together in casings, like this:
I also found this picture when I googled "sausages", and it's so strange, I think I'll share it here, too:
I also promised Zugi that I would post some popular economics books which I enjoy.  Here they are:
The Undercover Economist (Tim Harford)
Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner)
Superfreakonomics (Levitt and Dubner)
The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
Fooled by Randomness (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
The Armchair Economist (Steven E. Landsburg)
Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely)
 
At the end of the class, we had a few minutes left, so I taught the students how to play MASH, which is a game I used to play with my friends when I was young. Some vocabulary words that came up when I was explaining the game of MASH were:

mansion --> a really big, fancy house where very rich people live
shack  -> a really small, run-down house where very poor people live
UFO --> the spaceship that an alien drives (Unidentified Flying Object)
unidentified --> This is an amalgamation of words:
unIDENTIFied --> to "identify" something means to figure out what it is.
unIDENTIFIED --> if something is identified, you already know what it is.
UNIDENTIFIED --> something which you do not know what it is.
We played MASH to figure out what kind of house we'll live in, what job you'll have, what car you'll drive, and how many children you will have, but the traditional way to play MASH is to find out who you will marry when you grow up.

Saturday, 30 October, 2010: A3 Class

In this class, again, Altantogos was the only one who did her homework.  She is two for two (that means that two times in a row, she is the only student in the entire class who did her work).  I promised that if it happened again, I would give Altantogos a special treat.


For the rest of the class, we reviewed family words.  We did this by having individual students come up and draw their family tree on the board.  Then, we had the rest of the class ask questions about the family trees.  For example:

Who is Alegsandra?
She is my second cousin.

Halloween Riddle #5

What do you call an overgrown vampire?

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Friday, 29 October, 2010: Grades 1 and 2, and B1, B2, and B3 Classes

This was our final lesson before Halloween, so we had a Halloween craft lesson.  All grades made ghosts out of Kleenex.  Grades 1 and 2 made construction paper Jack-o-lanterns, while B1, B2, and C3 classes made masks.  Here are a few photos from the day, and see the slideshow on the right sidebar for more photos.  The slideshow only shows 110 photos, but I have 220 photos, in all.  Click on any one of the photos to see a bigger copy of the picture, and to see all the photos.  Thanks.







Halloween Riddle #4

What does a vampire do when he gets a cold?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Thursday, 28 October, 2010: A1, A2, C1, and C2 Classes

Today, our last lesson together before Halloween, was a Halloween craft lesson.  We made ghosts out of Kleenex (and toilet paper, when my Kleenex supply ran low), and we also made Halloween masks out of coloured paper.  Here are some photos of the Halloween Craft lesson we had.  I took a lot more photos than just these, though (see the slideshow on the right-side bar).  I know the pictures in the slideshow are small, but if you click on any one of the photos in the slideshow, you will be able to see a bigger version of the pictures.






Halloween Riddle #3

What is worse than being a 1000-pound witch?

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Wednesday, 27 October, 2010: A3 Class

In this lesson, I tried to check your homework from last time, and found that only one person had completely done the homework (congratulations, Altantogos, for doing all the homework!) and only one other person had even half finished the homework (thank you, Khulan, for doing some of the homework).  This led Marie to tell you about the plan for next term: for this first term, you were lucky because there were no grades in my class, but for next term, I will be giving you guys grades based on class participation (bringing your notebooks/books to class, taking notes, listening to the lesson, following instructions), homework (whether your homework is done and complete), tests (you will have some tests next term), and assignments (I will give one or two assignments), so hopefully this will be enough of an incentive for you to take English class a little more seriously next semester.

Then, we moved on and started talking about family trees.  We looked at a family tree in our textbook of a boy named Peter, and we talked about Peter's family (Who is Peter's grandmother? Who's Caroline? etc).  Then, for fun, Marie drew her enormous family tree on the chalkboard, we found that Marie has 22 aunts and uncles, 33 cousins, and about 33 second cousins, as well.  

We also looked at some family riddles:

My sister is my mother's daughter.
My father is my grandfather's son.
My mother is my father's wife.
My uncle is my aunt's husband.


This reminded Marie of a riddle in a short story called "Juan Verdades", by Joe Hayes.  In this story, Juan Verdades, an extremely honest character, picks all of the apples from his boss's prize apple tree and gives them away to the girl he loves.  When it comes time to admit to his boss what he did, here is what he says:


"A fool picked the apples and gave them away.  The fool is my father's son.  If the fool had a child, he would call his father "grandfather".  I don't have any brothers."


Challenge:  Can you figure out this family riddle?  Who is the fool?  Is it:
a) the speaker? 
b) the person being spoken to?
c) the father?
d) some other person we don't know about?


Don't forget your homework!
Remember the enourmous family tree Marie showed you?  Well, now it's your turn to show me your family tree.  Include your grandparents, your parents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins, and your brothers and sisters!

Wednesday, 27 October, 2010: A2 Class

In this lesson, we reviewed how to talk about fixed arrangements by using the present continuous (remember the listening exercise we did?).  Then, we moved on to a new page in the book and Marie attempted to have a discussion about emails, how often we send emails, who we send emails to, and why we send emails, but you guys did not seem interested in following the discussion or the lesson.  This led to Marie telling you guys about the new grading scheme for next term.  For this first term, you were lucky because there were no grades in my class, but for next term, I will be giving you guys grades based on class participation (bringing your notebooks/books to class, taking notes, listening to the lesson, following instructions), homework (whether your homework is done and complete), tests (you will have some tests next term), and assignments (I will give one or two assignments), so hopefully this will be enough of an incentive for you to take English class a little more seriously next semester.

Don't forget your homework!
Khisigsuren, Joy, Rose, and Temuulen all have to create a gmail account.  Just go to www.gmail.com, click the button that says "Create Account", and follow the instructions.  All other students already have email addresses, so everyone (including Khisigsuren, Joy, Rose, and Temuulen, after they have created their email addresses) must write me an email at marieinmongolia@gmail.com.  You can write about anything you want.  You can tell me about your family, you can tell me about your fixed plans for the weekend, you can ask me a question about class, but you must write an email!

Wednesday, 27 October, 2010: C1 Class

In this lesson, we looked at two letters from Eddy and Oscar.  Some grammar that came up when we looked at the letters were:

Lin's got = Lin has
Cindy's got = Cindy has
I've got = I have

Some vocabulary that came up in this lesson was:

computer --> the big, heavy monitor that and tower that stays on your desk
laptop --> a smaller, lighter, portable computer that you can carry around with you
notebook  (computer)--> like a laptop
centre (of town) --> the middle of town
python --> a very big snake, like in the following picture:

Don't forget your homework!
Finish the writing assignment from page 15.  Pretend that you are writing a letter to a friend and telling your friend about a new friend that you made.

Wednesday, 27 October, 2010: C2 Class

In this lesson, we reviewed the words "opposite", "next to", and "between".  Then, we practiced asking and answering questions using "Is there":

Is there a bank opposite the cinema? --> No there isn't.  There's a supermarket opposite the cinema.
Is there a house between the bank and the restaurant? --> Yes, there is.
Is there a station next to the bank? --> No, there isn't.  there's a house next to the bank.

Don't forget your homework!
Ha!  Luck!  You don't have any homework today.

Halloween Riddle #2

Why was Dracula put in jail?





He tried to rob a blood bank!

Vocabulary

It's time for twelve new vocabulary words that American students are actually expected to know (all taken from McGraw Hill's 400 Essential SAT Words).  Challenge yourself!  See if you can learn some of these words and use them in a conversation or in an essay!

ephemeral (Adj.)  Not real or authentic for any length of time; fleeting
The thrill of tearing down a hill on a sled is ephemeral because soon you have to get off the sled and climb to the top of the hill again.

erroneous (Adj. N: erroneousness  Adv: erroneously)  Mistaken or untrue
Erroneous information led the police force to pursue the wrong subject.

evanescent (Adj.  N: evanescence  V: evanesce)  Vanishing or likely to vanish; without much substance
One's dreams are often evanescent, because, soon after waking, most people forget the details.

fallacy (N.  Adj: fallacious)  (1) a false notion; (2) a rhetorical flaw in an argument; (3) an untruth.
(1) It is a fallacy to think black cats bring bad luck.
(2) There was such a glaring fallacy in the lawyer's argument that it was no surprise that he lost the case.
(3) Some pessimists believe that true love is a fallacy; it just doesn't exist.

fantasy (N.  Adj: fantastic, fantastical  V: fantasize)  A creation of the imagination; an imagined event; a dream
Tolkien is the author who introduced the reading public to a genre of fiction known as fantasy novels.

fleeting (Adj.  Adv: fleetingly)  Passing quickly; ephemeral
We caught a fleeting glimpse of the squirrel as it scampered away from the bird feeder.


hallucination (N.  Adj:  hallucinatory  V:  hallucinate)  (1) A false or mistaken idea; a delusion; (2) A multisensory experience with no external stimulus, often drug-induced
(1) After my grandfather's death, my grandmother experienced some strong hallucinations in which her late husband talked to her.
(2) While coming out of the anesthetic after my surgery, I kept having very strange hallucinations.

illusion (N.  Adj: illusionary)  An erroneous perception of reality; a fantastical plan.
Chaltu had a strong illusion about the possibility of someone following her.

imaginative (Adj)  Havine a lively, creative mind; creating fantastic dreams
imaginary (Adj.  Adv: imaginatively V: imagine)  Not real, from the imagination
It is not unusual for a child, especially an only child, to be very imaginative and to create an imaginary friend.

imprecise (Adj.  N: imprecision  Adv: imprecisely)  Not precise; not exact or sure
Since Mallory's answer was rather imprecise, Matthew's response sounded intelligent and specific by comparison.


inaccurate (Adj.  N: inaccuracy. Adv: inaccurately)  Mistaken or incorrect; not accurate.
Abraham stood by his beliefs and principles whether they were inaccuarate or exact.


mirage (N)  (1) soemthing that is illusory or insubstantial; (2) an optical phenomenon that creates the illusion of water.
(1) Thomas always visualized the mirage of a six-figure income.
(2) A typical mirage is a green and lush oasis in the middle of the desert.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Tuesday, 26 October, 2010: Grade 2 and 3

In this class, we reviewed the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that each of the letters make.  Then, we practiced reading some words with the short /o/ sound.  Some words we practiced in class are:


fox / box / pot / mop / fop / top / rot / lot / rom / pom / cot / con / cog / cop / bog / bop / cost / dogs

Tuesday, 26 October, 2010: C3 Class

In this class, we reviewed and practiced how to give phone numbers.  We practiced asking and answering the questions, "What's your phone number?" and "What's Dolgoon's phone number?"


We reviewed how to ask "What's this?" and how to say if something belongs to someone:
It's Dolgoon's notebook.
Then we learned the phrase, "It's very nice!"

We reviewed the family words: dad, mom, grandmother, grandfather, brother, sister.  Then, we practiced talking about Masid's family:

His father's name is Akil.
His grandmother's name is Alima.

Someone asked a very important question about why we say "his" instead of "her".  It's because "his" is talking about Masid, and we know that Masid is a boy, so we need to say "his", even if we are telling about a girl in our sentence:

His sister's name is Bibi. ("his" is telling about Masid, not Bibi)
His mother's name is Laila. ("his" is telling about Masid, not Laila)

Tuesday, 26 October, 2010: B1 Class

In this class, we talked about emails, how often we send emails, to whom, and why we send emails.  We also read and talked about a girl's email in our textbook.


Some vocabulary that came up in this class was:

opening remarks --> the things you say at the beginning of a letter or email
closing remarks --> the things you say at the end of a letter or email
theme park --> like an amusement park
Don't forget your homework!
For your homework, you have to write an email to me at marieinmongolia@gmail.com
You can write this email any time before Sunday, October 31st.

Tuesday, 26 October, 2010: B2 Class

In this class, we started to review the directions: North, East, South, West, North-East, South-East, South-West, North-West.  We were meant to do a fun activity, but I noticed that half the class was not taking notes, so we wrote some notes about Canada instead (Vancouver in in the West. Prince Edward Island is in the East., etc) and then, based on the notes we took, we practiced finding the cities on a map of Canada which I drew on the board. 


Next time, if we are trying to do a fun activity, please do not spoil it by not following directions!

Do not forget your homework!
Today, you do not have any homework, but please be sure to do it in the future!

Halloween Riddle #1

Okay, students, something you might not know about your teacher yet: I get very excited about holidays.  As most of you know, October 31st is Halloween, which is a lot of fun.  I'm going to post one riddle a day, until Halloween Day.  I hope you enjoy them!



Sunday, October 24, 2010

Monday, 25 October, 2010: B1 Class

In this lesson, we learned what a suggestion is and we practiced giving some suggestions:

Why don't we go to a movie?
What about going to a movie?
Let's go to a movie.
Shall we go to a movie?

Marie thinks it sounds weird to say "Shall we go to a movie?"  She prefers the word "should"-- "Should we go to a movie?", although if you want to say "shall", it definitely is okay to use "shall", as we can see in these movie posters:



We also learned some different ways to reply to a suggestion.  If our reply is "yes", we can say:
Sure.
Okay.
Let's do it.
I'd love to.
Sounds good.
Sounds great.

If our reply is "no", we can say:
Sorry, I can't.
I'd love to, but.....
I'm busy.
I'd rather not.
I don't want to.

Don't forget your homework!
Got ya lookin!  You don't have any homework today, lucky kiddos!


Monday, 25 October, 2010: A1 Class

In this lesson, we reviewed some conversation exchanges.  Then, we moved on and read three emails for three different teenagers about their problems.  The problems were:

Sally is desperate because she gained a lot of weight and doesn't know what to do.
Danny is lonely because he doesn't fit in at school.
Tom is shy because he's afraid of making a fool of himself.

I also pointed out that because-clauses are special because, after the word 'because', you can just put a normal complete sentence:

Sally is desperate because she gained a lot of weight and doesn't know what to do.
Danny is lonely because he doesn't fit in at school.
Tom is shy because he's afraid of making a fool of himself.


In pairs, we practiced talking with each other in English and discussing what Sally, Danny, and Tom could do about their problems and giving our justifications (reasons) for our suggestions. Next time, we will talk more about our suggestions for these three problems.

Don't forget your homework!
Today, you guys don't have any homework, but please don't forget to bring a memorable photo to school on Saturday and have a few words to share about your photo!  Even if you don't bring a photo to school, I'll make you come to the front of class and tell us a short story, so please bring a picture!

Monday, 25 October, 2010: A3 and B2 Classes

Lesson 1:

In this lesson, learned the directions: North, East, South, West, North-East, South-East, South-West, and North-West.


We also reviewed how to ask and answer where a city is:

Where's [CITY]? --> Where's Bayan-Olgii?
It's in [COUNTRY]. --> It's in Mongolia.
Where exactly? --> Where exactly?
It's in the [COMPASS DIRECTION]. --> It's in the West.

Don't forget your homework!
Draw a map of Mongolia and write sentences about some of the towns/landmarks in Mongolia.