You're a mean one...
We had quite a fun English corner the other night. I forget if I mentioned it before, but the neighborhood English corner, which is put on by some of the other Americans in town, has been showing movies for the past few weeks. I've had mixed feelings about the change to "movie corner", but I have to admit it is a chance for the students to get exposed to an English language environment. Anyway, in honor of the season, last Saturday's film was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. That was followed by a dramatic reading of Green Eggs and Ham, and then we broke into small groups to give everyone a chance to read a Doctor Suess book aloud. The whole program struck me as a great idea, one that probably wouldn't occur to me. At English corner you have the problem in that you are dealing with people with adult, or at least teenage, maturity, yet who also are limited to a child's level of English. One doesn't want to offer up childish content for fear of boring or offending the student. Many Doctor Suess books, however, are quite entertaining at any age. And should anyone take offense at being given a children's book, you can always claim that you're just giving some cultural literacy, because everyone in America has read Doctor Suess.Actually, the cultural literacy aspect was another thing that caught my attention last Saturday. Just like when you first share your childhood favorites with your kids, presenting the Grinch to the students made me think about it in a whole new light. I hadn't watched the cartoon in years. So in one sense I was being reintroduced to it. But in another, it was chock full of my culture--from all the Christmas customs and trappings to Chuck Jones' style of animation. Every frame of that cartoon was familiar for me. Once again I was thankful that I have this opportunity to step outside my culture and see it from a new perspective. I was also pleased that the Chinese folks in our audience seemed to enjoy it, too. It's nice to be able to share a bit of fun.
posted by John @ 1:46 AM
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