I swear, these two things were not related to each other, but…
January 18th, 2012 by Rural_RoseHere were today’s most interesting teaching challenges (from my morning Advanced ESL group)
- When the word “partner” came up, (as it will frequently, since nearly every page of our new textbook encourages the students to work with a partner), one student said, “I say ‘partner’ one day at work and someone say to me, ‘Are you gay or something?’ Is ‘partner’ like a bad word or mean gay or something?” (…thus resulting in my awkward attempt to explain use of “partner” for “person with whom someone makes a home, but who said person may not …uh…be married to…”)
- and, (from the same student, after I had said, “Good question. Please speak up if you have questions about any other words”), thus resulting in an awkward charade that I hope no one noticed as they walked past my classroom): “What is ‘wrestling‘?”
And your definition of wrestling?