Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I’ve got a new lesson plan for beginners which  I plan to try out soon, but I’ll have to try it out a few different times, with different age groups.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of adult students and none of them are in groups, and this will really work best as a group exercise, and none of them are beginners.

So, I’m going to be trying this on my 5th, 6th and 7th graders.  The idea is to start with a simple phrase that everybody knows, and likes, and likes knowing.  It’s in 10 million pop songs, so any kid who doesn’t know it has wax in their ears and far larger social problems than just not being very good at English.  Of course, I mean “I love you.”

So, I write that on the  board.  Titters from the girls, a slightly  more embarrassed reaction from the boys.  I explain that I intend to teach them 5,000 English sentences in the next 45 minutes.

Then I change the last word.  I love spaghetti.  I love football.  This is the critical stage of the lesson.  If I can get them shouting suggestions from the floor faster than I can write, I’ll get 40 or 50 words on the board in about 5 minutes.  If they look at me blankly and I’m forced to call on them one by one and coax things out of them, it will be a problem.

Then you change the middle verb, because everything implies it’s opposite, so obviously you teach hate, and need, and want, and eat, and drink, and play…and again, if the class is into the fun aspect of it, I’ll get about 15 words down on the board.

Then, I’ll run them through the pronouns and add a few funny names, Justin Bieber will be on the list, half the class loves him and I bet you can guess which half.

Then, I’ll have them compose sentences.  If there’s still time, I’ll make that written.

Then, just before the end of the class, I’ll show them the math.  10 in the first column, times 15 in the 2nd column (I’m just making these numbers up now) is 150.  150 times 40 is 6,000.

Limitless is from a couple  of years ago and I’d never heard of it, so it must not have made too much of a splash at the time, but we watched it tonight so here are my views.

It was about a guy who gets hold of a drug which makes him super-duper smart, like that time John Travolta got hit  by  lightning, or Cliff Robertson  in Charlie.

Despite his “four digit” IQ, DeNiro has him sussed and he doesn’t even know it

First off, even though I totally enjoyed it, it was kind of a shit film.  Although in its really dark sections it seemed to be a fictionalized docudrama about the horrors of drug addiction, like when his ex-wife  confessed to him that she’d  been an addict and they had that montage scene where he called all the names in that notebook and  they were all dead or in the hospital, and those parts were actually pretty good, but the rest of the time they seemed to be going for a light hearted comedy, and those are two genres which don’t mix at all, a director needs to pick a direction and go for it.

Also, after he boinked the landlord’s sexy Asian wife, nothing happened and she wasn’t heard from again, after he wrote his book the book was never heard from again, and they never explained who murdered the slutty blonde chick or, for that  matter, why?  And, as well as a lot of stuff being left out, some really extraneous stuff was there for no reason.  Like everybody on Wall St. is amazed at his genius, and he needs to go to the Russian Mafia for seed money and  then he makes millions in a couple of days and he forgets to pay him back?

Then it winds up with him totally just having figured out how to handle the drug, which sort of negates the entire meaning of all those characters (who, even in the middle of a celluloid fantasy, are still only known by  allusion) who died to  move the plot forward.

Worst, he doesn’t really  seem to have any  grand design, and plan to use the drug going  forward except to be smarter than  everybody  else but, he’s not exactly being a superhero or anything.

I really like the  concept, though, of having access to 100% of your brain power.  And the fight scenes were pretty  well done.

I am certain I have  at least touched on this subject in this blog before, because it is one of my pet peeves, but I saw another of those columns today.  This one was 15 (or maybe it was 8, I don’t remember) things not to say to identical twins.Forwarded on facebook every day, they infest the internet with their unbearable ubiquitousness.   10 things to never say to a pregnant woman, 10 things never to say to a childless woman, 10 things never to say to a woman with children, 7 things never to say to a disabled person, 12  things never to say to a person standing on a ledge, 6 things never to say to a person in the middle of the intersection, cars backed up and honking in both directions, loudly singing opera with his trousers down around his ankles.

The thing is, if you have a list of more than 2 things that people shouldn’t say to you, you are kind of an anti-social fuck to start with.

Secondly, 13  things, seriously?  You’re making shit up.  I believe that happens a lot with these kind of stories.  People just make shit up.  That would also explain the odd numbers.  It goes like this:

Editor: “Jimmie!  Get your little ass in here!”

Jimmie: Yes, sir, Mr. Editor, sir.

Editor: Give me a list of 10 things you shouldn’t say to a skateboarder with a gun!  I want it in 2 hours!

Jimmie: Yes, sir, Mr, Editor, sir

(1 hour and 59 minutes later)

Jimmie: I’m sorry, Mr. Editor, sir, I could only think of 7

Editor:  O.K., whatever.

Thirdly, a lot of it should be common sense, don’t say anything mean, or rude, or horrible, at least not on purpose and if you occasionally do so accidentally, move on.

That’s about it, really.