New desk...

Adventures in Teaching Connotation

Sorry for the bad photo, but it was taken off my whiteboard with my phone in the 5 minutes between lessons...

I put the basic sentence up, and divided the class in half. One half had to insert words with negative connotations, and the other half had to insert words with positive connotations. We started by changing nouns and verbs. Then we added adjectives and adverbs. They each wrote in their books (I allowed them to help each other in pairs and groups of three) and I wandered around giving the whiteboard markers to people who had interesting contributions to add to the board.

It took about ten minutes, and was a fabulous fun way to cement the ideas of denotation and connotation. In hindsight, it was also a fun way to sneak a bit of new vocabulary in to certain learner's repertoire! I will definitely do this again.

It's Five O'Clock on a... Fri-iday...

...the regular crowd shuffles in. There's a young man, sitting next to me...

And these guys are my new best friends for the next few hours:

I/we have been on a major Big Bang binge for the past couple of weeks - we're not about to let some trivial marking interrupt. Not much, anyway!

I think the main reason I love Big Bang Theory is simple... I married a slightly less dorky but pretty much as smart, funny and caring version of Leonard. Shout out to you, my angel (that's Adam, just so we're clear)!

Adam also wins on height ;)

Oh yeah, and he's REAL.

Beat that, homies

jjr

April, May... June?

Despite all my best intentions, it seems that once again three (or so) months have gone by with no significant blogging efforts from yours truly...

My bad...

Yep, that is my 'my bad' face. Ha!

Needless to say, things have been hectic. Personal busy (recovering from the great wedding, for a start), school busy (adjusting to a new subject this year and preparing for a new curriculum next year, not to mention extra mural craziness), everything busy. 

There has been time, mind you. Just not... headspace, bandwidth, whatever you want to call it. That thing which makes me want to spend sometime relaxing not by relaxing but by reflecting and/or creating.

So, here are some reflections, just to get myself back into the swing of things:

Cats know how to rest while staying alert. It's not either or, but both.

Plants grow towards what is good for them, and away from what is bad.

Clouds go where the wind takes them. They don't fight the inevitable.

Peace out, man.

jjr