Cause and Effect Essay Writing-Not what you think it is!

I like to give my students the freedom to choose the topics they are going to develop into an essay. This, I feel, gives them more control, keeps them interested in what they are trying to do, and generally, I'm happy to report, it works.

The cause and effect essay that we were getting ready to write was going to be tackled by one of my more modest students, who was painfully quiet, but seemed to enjoy class. I received his first rough draft, and proceeded to have a darn good belly laugh. His topic was "Why Couples Divorce" and as every red blooded American knows, there are too many reasons to actually list. His take on the whole mess wasn't revolutionary, per se, but it was amusing. He stated...and I quote " Many divorce take place because of the sexy life". After I read that, I said to myself wow, it IS because of the sexy life! After all, there are grown men running around this planet conducting booty calls and then they are getting dragged into court and roundly divorced, because of the sexy life. Internet adultery is on the rise because of the sexy life! More problems arise because of the sexy life!

It took everything within me to sit him down during our conference and correct his English. I secretly wanted him to keep the language and continue with it, but I knew that would just be plain wrong and a bit too selfish. So, the sexy life was corrected. It then read, "many couples divorce because of the lack of a healthy sex life." Booorriinngggg!!!

I AM English.....

My student, Peter Pan, was much more fluent than the rest of my students. This caused him to jump in and automatically correct his fellow classmates, laugh out loud at incorrect verbage, and frankly display other various obnoxious reactions to his fellow classmates. So, it was time to pull him aside and have "the talk". You know, fellow teachers, exactly what I'm talking about. You dread it, but you know you have to do it.

So, after class, and after a particularly condescending session with Peter Pan in rare form, I put an end to his comments. I politely told him that I will be the one in class to gently correct the students when they make English mistakes and that it was not necessary for him to get involved. As I was diplomatically laying this out for him, he interrupted me with this statement.
"But I AM English, I FEEL English, these people do not!" With this, I simply didn't know where to go with it. I stopped and decided to play along. "Yes, Peter, I know you're English, but I could have sworn you were Chinese". He started laughing. I smiled and put my head down, this wasn't going to be too bad after all.

Chinese English ....or Chinglish

Sometimes my students are just plain more expressive and creative with my own language.
I have moments of pure awe....and some moments of pure confusion, but mostly of awe.

I was teaching a Reading and Writing class and the assignment was "Please write a paragraph about our program and how it will help you in your quest for a masters degree." I got the standard paragraph response- To make the life better, So I can learn the English more to make the job. The best response, hands down, was from a very distracted student, later I learned why he was so distracted. His response was typical, but he ended his creative writing exercise with "I hope I am able to complete my program and meet my destiny girl."

Wow, destiny girl! Immediately I thought "why don't English speakers talk like that"? How romantic, how gooey, with sappy love drippings hanging off these words...destiny girl! My next question was, why aren't I someones destiny girl? I came home that night and read it to my companion. He immediately agreed that, yes, our language doesn't give us gals props and two, he would adopt this new way of speaking when he addressed me into our every day language.

Now, thanks to this student, I am now know as my companion's Destiny girl!

Starting Out....my first semester in my new program!

Ah, culture and language! Can't separate the two, and to be honest, would you really want to try? The richness of my experiences and the stories that I go home with on a daily basis prove to me over and over again that various humans from around the world, herded into a classroom and forced to speak a lingua franca can make for some very amusing stories!

My first class was a listening/speaking class. I had twelve students, all from China. Being the responsible teacher, I asked the students to introduce themselves. It is a well known practice that many Chinese students take English names, so being in the know, I procedued to ask for introductions. I should have known this was going to be interesting when the first student introduced himself as "Peter Pan". As I moved around the room, I got more interesting names, like Magic. The best, however came from Robin, who asked me to call him....and I quote "Robin Hood, King of English forest."

Then there was a girl who wanted to be called banana. I asked her to clarify why she wanted to be named banana and she simply stated, " I like the way it sounds". I came home quite amused with this bit of information and told my companion about it. A few days went by and my companion returned with some horrifying news. "I have some colleagues at work who are Asian American and they informed me that banana is a slur." "What?" I exclaimed in horror! I had no clue about this bit of rancid news. In any case, I was determined to go into class the next day and get banana to drop her name. "But I like that name" she said innocently. " I know you do, but banana is the name of a fruit and frankly, Americans will react surprised when you introduce yourself as banana! "But I know people who name is Apple". Thanks to Gwenyth Paltrow I was having a much harder time making my case. "I understand", I said gingerly, but to be honest there are much prettier names you can take in English."

Truthfully, the slur was terrible in its own right, but all I could think of was the obvious connection of the very phallic fruit and my feminism. I just couldn't let this beautiful young girl walk around calling out banana, banana! I cringed at the thought. Luckily in the end, she decided to change her name. This was the start of a very long and interesting first semester