Occasional Tales

I’d rather you didn’t press it. 3. Samir is using the washing machine at the laundrette, Which two further steps must he take to make the machine work? Student’s answer: (ii) Press the green bottom Student’s answer (ii): Press the green battle Student’s answer (ii): Press green butter 6. Why must Assim’s surprise celebration take place in the afternoon? Student’s answer: There’s a cricky clock practice in school. Student’s answer: There’s a quick clock basic. Student’s answer: cricky cock practice, they need to go to school at 4pm. The actual answer is “cricket (club) practice”. In question 9, I’ve been informed several times that the astronaut was trying to repel the space shuttle. 10. a. What does Dale make? Student’s answer: She shit and bend. Overall, this has not been a good listening practice test. I think the top mark so far is 21.

The last of the speaking. It’s almost all over, or will be in about eight hours. Today I have to put up with the arrant nonsense the AS students are going to produce. I suspect that some of them will embarrass themselves and prove my suspicion that quite a number should’ve been in the PAL class this year. My next concern is the unwelcome arrival of that dratted woman on Friday. I have an idea which will involve a comic strip and some ideas pinched from the 3.5e Dungeon Master’s Guide. It’s meant to foster creativity, but could well throw into sharp relief the tendency of Chinese school children to make a minimal amount of effort. The real Internet was neutered at the weekend, but is up and running this morning. Can’t dawdle, though. There are speaking exams waiting. Yawn.

It returns. This isn’t really a convenient time of the year for unwelcome visitors. We’re approaching the final exams and have the speaking exam next week, which, as I think I’ve said, is going to be an enormous pain. That dratted woman was hoping to turn up next week, but is now coming back to irritate me the week after. As a consequence, I’m going to have to waste a class on some infantile frippery to keep this woman happy. That means thinking of something suitably bright and sparkly, and devoid of academic content. My problem now is trying to think of something which came from the mock exam, which can be turned into a kindergarten activity. For example, the writing was dull, clichéd stuff generally lacking in the slightest whiff of originality (though there’s nothing new under the sun) and imagination. How do I therefore incorporate originality and imagination in writing into a kindergarten lesson? How do I do such a thing with the sort of topics which tend to occur in t

You can never make anything too complicated. I see I had a spike in visitors because of my previous post, which must’ve disappointed a small number of right-wing Americans because it had nothing to do with the apparent topic. I finished marking the mocks yesterday and had assigned them grades according to the standard thresholds before waving some Tippex over them and using the less generous thresholds which we’d been given. In some cases, I thought the loss of a grade was a little unfair; in other cases, I wholly agreed. Overall, I’d rather use the neutral grade thresholds rather than those devised for a specific exam; but my one qualm was that no one got below a C, which is a little unusual. The less good news is that we’re only going to get help with the speaking exams for a couple of days. The prospect of dealing with 195 students with just three of us was bad enough, but the whole process is going to drag on. If only the boys had been much nicer when they did the accre

The city, that is. I’m going a little spare. After Senior 1.1 managed to write about weekend-breaks to a variety of cities, I was hoping that Senior 1.2 would follow suit. No, they’ve almost all decided to go to Paris and all its fucking clichés. But I’ve just been pushed over the edge by You may be curious about which city I was chosen. I can tell you, it’s Pairs. And this isn’t an isolated misspelling. It’s Pairs right throughout the entire cliché-strewn task response. It’s a bit early for me to start drinking, but I’m looking at my bottle of wine and thinking that inebriation might be the very thing. What makes this worse is that none of my little bleeders are getting less than than the equivalent of an A for the Reading and Writing. I should be pleased, shouldn’t I? Bugger off.

Dot you eyes, cross your teas, hook your effs. Imperial students can often be rubbish at distinguishing between t and f because they fail to make the hook at the top of the latter. If yes, give details of the injury: tell titty metres down I don’t know what titty metres are, but since I’m an old perv, I like the sound of this sort of measurement. The same student starts his letter Dear Lutty or Luffy or Lufty or Lutfy. I cannot say which. No real howlers in the exams I’ve been marking, but no real surprise given the singular lack of imagination among my little darlings. We lighten the camp fire… and [we chat and laugh] all over the night. Pet irritation of the writing, “I think friends can never be enough”. Second pet irritation: handwriting which is minuscule and nearly illegible. Students! This is not a strain you want to place on me – if you know what I mean. What? You have no idea what I mean. Sigh. I’ve been fairly strict about my marking this time. No