Antidisestablishmentarianism and Big Ears

04 Dec 2008
Posted by Jordan
Jordan's picture

So today I played Constantinople with my 1st graders (i.e. 7th graders) at Napo using Matthew's suggested word: antidisestablishmentarianism. We had a short and decidedly un-profound discussion on the topic... the students seemed oddly uninterested in either the disestablishment of a state church, or being opposed to such disestablishment, despite the historical significance of the word. The middle schoolers were not at all against using the word for the forth round of the game, however, and it led to an intense, epic, race-the-bell finish, where team Puma just barely beat out team Nike (can you believe those creative names?).

In fact, the ending was a bit loud... how to control such noisy outburts? Well, Matthew had found the answer to that as well at Dave's ESL Cafe:

I teach 4th graders in a Danish school (10-11-year-olds) and as kids are everywhere, the noise level tends to rise. We don't believe in mindless discipline acts, which tend to degrade students, create unhealthy competition and, worse, damage their self esteem. Instead, we bought and placed a big ear-shaped electronic device, which measures decibel. A green light means the noise level is acceptable, yellow means it's getting up there and red is of course unacceptable. By talking with the children about how noise can be disrupting for everyone, not just the teachers, we have now reached a noise agreement. Of course, in the beginning it was fun to see how quickly the ear became red, but gradually, the children turned to respect the ear on the wall and administer the noise level themselves. Try it out and see for yourselves!

I'm sure they're common in Denmark, but in Korea I'm just not quite sure where to start looking for a large decibel-sensing ear...

Long words and SHOCK

I was doing a game of Special Review Constantinople today (which is not a "game," mind you, it's a Review Activity), and one of my groups wrote "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis." So far as I could tell in class they actually spelled it properly, so I ignored the fact that some linguists argue it's not a real word and gave them three extra bonus points. (Sadly, the team still lost by one point.) Would that all of my classes involved being so pleasantly surprised by my students.

Yeah, there are some things in which your students are just never going to be interested. Literature (especially poetry), decent movies, social issues, etymology, and the offical status of a state church are just a few of the topics that will not produce any reaction from them. Sometimes English is also in this category, which is a rather large obstacle for me.