As some of you may be aware, I am in Mongolia, teaching at an English language school. While few of my entries focus on things that deal directly with my teaching experiences, I have decided to make an exception.
For a little background, I teach a 2nd Grade class of 21 students. As with many international teaching positions, the student whom I teach have a fairly tenuous grasp of the English language. An unfortunate side effect of this is that my own abilities in speaking English have slipped somewhat.
Since many of my students are rather... active, I often find myself having to redirect their attention. The other day, during one of our activities, I found one of my students doing some bizarre combination of a somersault and a headstand. In response, I asked the child (with no exaggeration) "Who is your doing?"
Allow me to break do this question for you.
Who: In English, a word often used to ask about which person is being referenced. In this context, it is used to mean "the thing in question." Normally, one might opt to use the word WHAT in its place.
Is: A word that implies existence in a third party. Here, it is used in a similar context, but in a second party reference. One may normally select the word ARE in a sentence such as this.
Your: Almost exclusively used to imply possession by you. In this instance, it is designed to create a second person as the object of the sentence. I suppose the word YOU may be better qualified for this sentence.
Doing: The only word in the question that is used correctly, however, it seems to carry a slightly irregular meaning do to the choice of the previous three words.
Sadly, these experiences seem to be increasing in frequency, which may or may not defeat the purpose of instructing the students in English. It also seems that the meanings of my sentences are becoming far more ambiguous. I can only hope that in the future, I can correctly use a higher percentage of the words in my sentences. At least I got 1 out of 4 right.... 25%.... not the greatest success rate.
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1 comment:
hey colin, hope your doing well... just thought that i would tell ya i randomly was readin' the sarnia this week or petrolia this week or whatever it was i can't remember and i saw this exact blog in the paper writen by you good job... just thought that i would randomly tell ya that... hope that you are doing well...
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