I’m having my first year students at work put together an extended dialog of all the skills they’ve learned so far in my class. I imagined when planning the first lesson that they would remember everything and just string things together and be ready to go next class, but after my first class I was a little disappointed. The students spent their practice time writing a giant new script that they could memorize and then follow. I’m hoping that my other classes today don’t do the same thing, and I’m thinking about expressly forbidding it. We’ll see how it goes in class today. Unfortunately the skills that they pick up in my class don’t last long because they have no opportunity to use English at work outside of my class.
Last night we had some stew that I made up using the new food processor. There is a lot of power in that thing – I annihilated an onion in seconds and used the slicer to take care of three carrots in about the same time. It saved me some time – good news. The stew turned out OK, but still a bit watery. Next time I’ve got to thicken it up a little bit more. We used some baguette to soak up the sauce and it was delicious – especially on these cold evenings.
