Talent Show 2014

For the past three years I have performed at my school's Talent Show. It all started on March 11, 2011 when there was the 11.0 Earthquake in Japan and Fukushima disaster. About half of the students at my school left. The faculty was desperately looking for more acts to fill out the Talent Show, so I volunteered to sing. I have been involved in Musical Theater since I was in 7th Grade. I have performed in 12 musicals, many of which were lead roles. For example I have been Harold Hill in The Music Man, Warbucks in Annie, and Sky Masterson in  Guys and Dolls.

After that first year it has become a tradition that I perform something. However this year I decided to do something special. My talented wife and I decided to perform a duet. We sang "Love is an Open Door" from Frozen. It isn't as good as the movie, but I think we did a pretty good job; especially if you consider that we started rehearsing on Monday and the Talent Show was on Wednesday.

Enjoy!

Stories One Word at a Time

I know that I usually post about Mathematics Education, but I am getting a Masters Degree in Education with an emphasis on English Language Learners. I also teach a free English Conversation Class at my church once a week. This class has a 60 minute lesson and then a 30 minute game. Last week I took a game that I learned from my Drama Students (oh year, my wife and I also run the Drama program at my school).

The students sat in a circle and told a story one word at a time. One of the teachers wrote the story on the board so everyone could see it. The story didn't make much sense. It started off with one of the teachers sleeping and then her bike was flying and then a plane flew between football goal posts, etc. It was all over the place. One aspect of this game that I really enjoyed was that it required students to think about grammar and word choice. We had to corrected the grammar as we went and have short discussions about what is correct and why and it was a great way to emphasis basic grammar including articles, which my students struggle with. My students were initially taught English in a very structured setting with worksheets, this was a very open activity which stretches their abilities.

If you have an ESL class, I would encourage you to try a game like this.