Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Teaching

I missed watching the Obama Inauguration and hearing the complete address of our new president.  I was teaching an ESL class.   I heard pieces of the address on the radio during the day.   Today I returned to the same classroom.  One of the students brought the text of the speech to class.  I asked the class if they would like to read it aloud.  They did.  I walked among them and listened in awe as the speech was read in a dozen or more different accents.  Amazing.   We spent the two hours with Obama's words.  They asked about some of the phrases.  The unfamiliar metaphors and idioms.   

I have taught ESL for ten years and this was one of the most exciting, difficult and satisfying class I have taught.

1 comment:

Sue said...

That had to be very interesting. I have trouble understanding some of the accents when watching TV. Even the "King's English" sometimes seems difficult to understand.