I was also forced to walk across the school grounds today during one of the students' recreation times. I normally avoid that because it is just so crowded, but I couldn't today. Much to my delight, I had almost a dozen students say hi to me in English, and most were very excited to see me. A handful asked me how I was doing and even responded when I replied and one actually started up a conversation about the weather. It was a very encouraging afternoon and a great way to end the week.
The real things I wanted to share, however, are the chain stories we wrote in 2 of my classes today. One is a 3ème (freshman level) class and the other is 2nde (sophomore). In both classes, I had half the students for 25 minutes, during which we wrote a chain story, and then I had the other half. A chain story is when you take turns adding to the story. In our case, a person would add one sentence and then the next person would add one sentence, etc. Along the way, I corrected grammar, helped with vocab, and demonstrated how to spell items. This is actually a really good exercise because it forces the students to practice using the past tense. Their stories are random, full of violence, and sometimes just don't make sense. I want to be clear, I had no role in creating these. I just wrote them down. But we had so much fun, I wanted to share them.
Once
upon a time... a man entered a chocolate factory. He ate chocolate.
He swam in a river of chocolate. He had a big nose. He was fat. He
was small and big. He had big eyes. He had a small mouth. He saw a
gorilla and shot him with a shot gun. He had a big dog. The dog was
angry and he ate the man. The man came back to life. The man played
baseball with the gorilla's family and the dog was angry. He lived in
a manor made of chocolate. The dog was made of candy. The man bowled
with the gorilla's head. The man became a duck. He married the dog
and they had a lot of children.
The End
Once
upon a time...a little rabbit met another little rabbit. The first
rabbit ate the second. He was very happy. After, he met a cat. The
cat was crazy because he smoked cannabis. The rabbit ate the cat. The
rabbit was yellow. He had a big nose. The rabbit could fly. The
rabbit met a wolf. The wolf was called Super Wolf. The wolf ate the
rabbit's carrot. The rabbit played a carrot computer game. He won and
killed himself because he ate too many carrots and became fat. The
dead rabbit exploded. The wolf was sad because he killed the rabbit.
The wolf met a girl wolf and the story restarted...
Once
upon a time...vampires existed. And werewolves existed too. And sheep
that ate werewolves. Humans were scared. The vampires lived in a
castle. There were ghosts too. There were also rabbits who ate
vampires. A mouse ate the rabbit. They all lived together in the
castle. The castle was haunted. This story happened in a school.
Humans were alone in the world and had to survive. One day, a girl
was walking across the road next to the castle. She felt someone
behind her. She turned around and saw a big sheep. The sheep attacked
the girl. The girl was killed and transformed into a sheep.
The End
Once upon a time...there
was a strange band of teenagers who went to a strange house. It was a
haunted house. They wanted to have a party there. But they were in
the middle of nowhere. They invited a serial killer. Dracula lived in
the house and ate the serial killer to protect the teenagers.* During
the party the lights switched off and there was a lot of noise. At
midnight, they heard something near the chimney. It was Christmas
music. Suddenly, the lights turned on and Dracula was hip-hop
dancing. And he did a striptease. Everyone screamed because it was
too horrible to watch. They were blinded. Finally, Harry Potter came
with his broom. He fell on the ground next to Dracula and everybody
was laughing. But they woke up and it was just a dream. In reality,
they had to go to school.
The End
*someone said off to the
side that it was because he liked to party
Days like today make me love my job.
