Saturday 24 March 2007

It’s nearly easter!

And no, I’m not excited (that much) because of all the chocolate, but because it means two weeks holidays, which are much needed. Usually I don’t like long holidays, I end up missing my students (largely because I have no one to boss around) but I have been quite cranky recently, and have been taking it out on the students which I usually hate. Oh and before anyone starts complaining about how many holidays teachers have, I have a LOT of marking to do.

Which is partly why I’ve been so cranky probably. If there is one single thing I hate about my job it’s all the useless unnecessary paperwork. Actually I don’t mind the marking as much but it’s having to do endless lesson plans and schemes of work that no one checks. One thing they don’t tell you about in the recent adverts with the pretty interested students anyway, I shouldn’t complain too much, some people do nothing but pointless paperwork all day in offices and have no interaction with other people. Imagine.

Probably shouldn’t get too excited yet. Have got a week of giddy end of term mentality to put up with yet. So does anyone have any ideas for lessons that don’t involve my dictionary challnge! Which doesn’t go down well for some reason.

5 comments:

YMiss said...

Do the etymology challenge - get them to look up for dirty words in old english some of them were hilarious esp when we used them in sentences.
Actually that might not go down well with your head of department. Oh well you can't please everyone!

Anonymous said...

Watch a film. Something English related, Romeo and Juliet or some other adaptation of something you've done. If not one of those then how about Dangerous Minds? Its about a white English teacher who goes to work in a school mainly attended by black kids form a deprived background and turns them around kind of thing. It was made in 95 and has 'Gangstas Paradise' by Coolio in it =D

We used to play a game called Ghosts in high school. Pupils work in twos or small teams. The teacher chooses two letters, e.g th. The next team picks a letter to either go in front of after the 'th' however they can't spell a word. So lets say they put e after it and made 'the'. The team would then lose a life, they would be "dead". However they could choose to put o before it and make 'oth' with the word 'other' in mind. The next team then have to choose a letter. Lets say they put j after because they can't think of any word which contains 'oth'. The next team know that othj isn't a word and so can choose to challenge them. By challenging you forgo your turn however if the team cannot provide you with their word in mind they lose a life. On the other hand lets just say othj is actually part of a word then the challenging team loses a life. You have three lives each, after you lose the first you are dead, second buried and third ghost. After you lose your third you're out of the game. It can actually be quite fun, especially if you're competitive however I remember some kids weren't really too good at English and hated it. There were 2letters I remember that only occurred in 2 words. The first is 'kb' which is only in blackboard. I can't remember what the other 2 letters were. Oh yeah and you're only allowed to use words in the English dictionary. I think thats it.

Wow you made me type a lot, you better use this game now!

hema said...

mishy sweetie, by the time i've explained how to play that, the lesson will be over. but you have just reminded me of a game we played during deaf awareness week, where the students have to play hangman using the BSL alphabet. i might dig that up. so you did help me sort of, thanks:) i'll try and attach it soon.

Anonymous said...

Wow mishy, thts got me dizzy, i think that game had some side efects on you if you thought it was fun. Play...how many ingredients in shepards pie n how fast can u get it to my house :D

Anonymous said...

oo thinking of pointless annoying games you teachers fob us off with...
sum1 thinks of a word and tells others how many letters are in it -eg.3...cat (though u can b more adventrous) and others have to gues it. so theyl say pig (going on ur clases probable mentality-jk!)
the person can say
WHITE-if all letters are rong
RED if some letters are right but in the rong place
BLACK if letters are right and in the right place (youd obv say 1 blk n 2 red kinda thing)...so pigd b all white
nehu, my head now hurts
ws