Sunday, December 20, 2009

"My Latin Teacher is a Scrooge!"

The last day of school before Winter Break was Friday, December 18. At the beginning of the last block of the day, I had a student, with contempt in her voice, ask very loudly, "How come we're the only foreign language class not watching a movie?" To be honest, the idea of a movie had not even entered my mind.

My plans for the class included a review and quiz on the comparison of adjectives, practice with participles, and then a group-effort translation on a neat story involving a werewolf. Werewolves are the "in" beastie right now!

I do know for a fact that a couple of my colleagues were showing a Christmas-themed movie in the target language as an "extended listening exercise." They have that option and that resource. Good for them.

My thoughts were to bring closure to the regular comparison of adjectives and continue to recognize and translate participles in context. The translation of the story was a timely and interesting exercise and provided us with the opportunity to see both comparative and superlative adjectives and participles in context.

I had a plan and I carried it out. In my mind, the students had made an effort to be in school and come to class (the entire class was present!), and I wanted to make their time worthwhile. Oh yeah, my assignment over break was to place the textbook and the notebook in the locker and to enjoy the vacation. After all, it's a break, right?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent choices all. If you are a Scrooge by taking advantage of the small window teachers have to instruct, hats off to Scrooges.