Exams - Week 3

So the final week of exams is complete - it's been a mixed bag.

If Tom had still been in Foshan, and hadn't already left on holiday, he would have received numerous requests (from me) to just put me out of my misery and shoot me. Trying to persuade some of the remaining students to do their exams has been a more stressful experience than necessary. I had one class where a couple just refused to even do it - i'm not entirely sure what the repercussions of that situation are but I wasn't going to waste my precious trying to persuade them to string some sentences together when I have 1200 much more willing pupils to deal with!

Bizarrely, a surprisingly common phrase that has been used throughout the 3 weeks of exams is 'in a word'. I don't know who taught them this phrase but they haven't taught them how to use it properly or what it actually means. At the end of their speeches lots of students would say "in a word, I love basketball because...." and proceed to give me their spiel all over again about why they love x,y,z, they obviously haven't grasped the one word part!

When we return next semester i've created a lesson entitled 'words and phrases that are driving Gillian crazy!' in an attempt to correct the common mistakes made throughout the year group as well as widen their vocabulary - i'm fed up of hearing 'on my holiday I like to eat delicious food and visit places of interest'. When you ask them what exactly 'delicious food' and 'places of interest' are they haven't the foggiest; my aim is to change all that!

After 3 weeks of listening to slightly flawed English i've noticed i've started coming out with the occasional sentence with questionable grammar - i'm going to have to sort that one out pronto...

There is one distinct phrase that has stuck in my mind this week from one of my female pupils from when she was talking about school; "I love this school like I love my mother." I have no idea what this means and I didn't ask...

G x