Zora

21 Sep 2009      

gabitza

21 Sep 2009     

mariannina

Well, this morning I asked my ten-year-old students if they have chores to do at home! Only 4 out of 16 answered they give a hand at home! I thought that Italian mothers are to protective, but from what you said "mothers are mothers" everywhere! Ciao

21 Sep 2009     

Zora

too funny Gabitza and Mariannina... I don �t feel so bad now!

21 Sep 2009     

Zora

I know the feeling Sylvie. I had one student who asked me how to make toast. I told her since we were doing a breakfast topic and surprisingly, she came to class the next week and told me, quite proud of herself, that she had made toast that weekend!!

21 Sep 2009     

Judith@rwen

Hi Zora! I �m glad you posted this because I �ve been thinking for some time that for some reason I feel awkward when I have to ask the students to invent something so as to use the structure or the vocabulary. Maybe this doesn �t have direct relation with chores but with the fact that sometimes we have to ask students to invent to be able to use the structure and for some reason I feel it �s not the same. It �s like they are not using the language in a real context. What do you think? I always have a sort of difficulty when teaching routines, I have to explain in spanish what a routine is and name them. Also, I was teaching "be going to" and I tried to elicit from students future plans they may have to show them the use of the structure.. and they said they had no plans..(15-16 yrs old sts). I was a little shocked... So I had to ask them to invent! As for the chores, at least the students I have know about it and do some things at home. Not much thou! They admit it. But not to the extend of not really knowing what it is.

21 Sep 2009     

Zora

21 Sep 2009     

ants

One thing is for sure, there are not many Swiss teens who know how to make their bed, do the dishes, etc.   We are all in the same boat...it must be a generational thing...all around the world!!   The same here with the future plans...not all of them have any idea what they want to do later on in life.   Some teens do help around the house....I nearly fall off my chair...but most have a cleaner or a mother who does way too much for them!!   Is it a good thing that they don �t know how to do these chores? I don �t know but it does make it a challenge teaching them verbs to do with household chores!! Fiona.

21 Sep 2009     

Olindalima ( F )

Hi Linda Quote " My students don �t seem to do much more than go to school, play the computer, watch TV, eat and go to bed... so sometimes, it �s very hard to hold a simple question answer conversation class with them!!  It happened to me last year, many, many of my students seemed to be from some strange planet, where there were no chores. Fortunately, I had a pretty, sweet, lovely girl, whose parents had a restaurant and ... yes, she helped and a lot, not only at home, making her own bed, cooking her own breakfast, sometimes cleaning around and a few other things. She also gave a hand, in the restaurant, weekends, holidays and so on... You can see her here: http://www.mes-english.com/vkeypals/restaurant.php 15 restaurants from students in Portugal with menus and dialogs! set one, set two, set three Check set three ( she is the only one alone, in the photo ) It was delicious to check the result when I said she was the one: a brilliant student, a pretty, lovely teen and... someone that was already in charge, because, in fact, she had a lot of tasks she had to take care. They all changed their mind, I don �t mean they all began to give a help at home, but they all noticed that they all had, for free, a lot tasks, ready made, that were hard for someone to put them right away  and they could give a hand, they wouldn �t be no less, no more, just more helpful and receive, back, some kind of reward, either affective or not. My youngest child, 25, is a sweet ( and so are the others ). In August, I went a fortnight to Agadir, when I came back he had painted my bedroom, my bathroom, he took the carpets to the laundry, well, you can imagine, tons of work I didn �t have to care. We always had a kind of rule: no one has nothing to do, just check around and, if it doesn �t look fine, go ahead and do something; don �t sit waiting for it to be made. I do understand you, Linda, but nowadays most of the parents don �t have the time to sit and stay and talk and teach their children. It is a pity, but, we have also to take care of this. Don �t cry, there is hope, we will rock all the problems kisses The other linda

22 Sep 2009