I will admit that I am probably not the best ESL teacher ever. I’m hardly qualified, having only taken a short course in English teaching. Half the time I am not really sure what I am doing, I just do it. My students, thank goodness, already have a decent grasp over English grammar. What they need is to use it. Speaking is not something that is emphasized in the Chinese classroom.

So for the last month I have switched gears and changed from aviation English to oral English. Sometimes it is painful trying to think of things to do, other times it is fairly easy. Today I struck gold. I came up with this idea to write wacky, thought-provoking questions on cards and play a game with the students where each one drew a card, thought about it quickly and answered, using more than one word. I used questions like “If you could have any superhero power, what would you choose?” and “If you didn’t need to sleep, what would you do with the extra hours?”

I have 4 students in one class and 6 in the other. We all sat around a big desk and talked non-stop about the questions and other side stories that came up spontaneously. It was fun. Everyone talked. Everyone laughed.

I love days like this!