Can you fry an airplane?

I've been volunteering at two ESL (English as a second language) classes.

The first class is part of an Americorps program. Even though they advertised for volunteers, I had to be really pushy to get involved, sending repeated emails and voicemails. I'm assisting a teacher with an advanced beginner class. Unfortunately, her teaching methods are not only quite different from what I learned, they simply don't seem to be very effective. The problem came to a head last week, when only two students showed up due to Chinese New Year.

The teacher was at a loss for what to do with them, and asked me for ideas:
Do you think I should tell them to go home?
No -- they came for class, and we should give them a class.
But what can we do? I don't want the other students to get behind.
Why don't we give them conversation practice?
No, they are already good at conversation.
We could still practice with them.
No, that won't work. Maybe I should just tell them to go.
I think we should teach them something, since they bothered to show up. Why don't we take the same topic that is in the book, but give them different vocabulary?
No.
Why don't we take the same topic but make up different exercises.
No, that's too hard.
I see that the book has a section on ordering in a fast food restaurant. Why don't we give them a few sentences on how to order in a regular restaurant.
No.
How about a dialog for how to make a reservation?
No, that's too hard.
How about a dialog for what you say when you enter a restaurant?
No, that's too hard.

So she ended up just giving them a review of the previous chapter (the same review she'll repeat next week), and dismissing them early. I kept wishing that I was the teacher instead of just the assistant.

Then on Saturday I went into NYC to help at an informal ESL class sponsored by 'The Father Loves You' food pantry. They feed 4-500 people at a time, and offer all sorts of support services, one of which is a free ESL class. Different people show up (or don't show up) every week, so they don't even have a syllabus. The teacher uses 'The Oxford Picture Dictionary' which has pages organized by theme, such as 'transportation', and has a bunch of pictures on each page, with English labels at the bottom. The teacher points to a picture, says the word, has the students repeat it, and then moves on.

Language learning needs much more repetition, and the course that I took taught us to give the students much more practice. But once again, I'm not the teacher, I'm just the assistant. However, this week the teacher didn't show up, so I got to teach by myself, and it was lots of fun! I had 5 Chinese women in the class, one of whom was 77 years old.

This time, I took much more time on each word, and acted it out, and gave them sentences, and other similar words. For example, when we got to the word 'can opener', I acted out how you open a can, and then also explained that a can opener can be electric. Blank faces, so I ran across the room to an electric fan, and lifted up the plug and said 'electric' and all of a sudden they got it. Then I focused on the verb 'open', and ran across the room to the door and shut it and opened it, while saying 'shut' and 'open'. Then I asked them what else you can open, and one of the ladies gestured to her bag on the table, and lifted the flap and said 'open?' -- I was so excited, because I knew she got it. And then she explained to the others in Chinese, to make sure they got it too.

Next came the word colander. I pointed to the picture, and said it was like a bowl with holes, and described how you put vegetables in it, and the water runs through. Vegetables was the magic word. Just as I was about to move on, someone gestured as if she was turning a page and said 'colander?...days?' I suddenly realized she was confusing colander with calendar, so I drew a picture of each, with the word underneath. They stared with interest and asked "same word?" So we drilled the pronunciation together: Colander -- Calendar, colander -- calendar.

Next came the frying pan. I tried to explain it, and then asked them what the would cook in a frying pan. One student suggested 'eggs'. So I found a picture of eggs, to make sure the other students were following too, and I did a whole charades exercise, starting with taking eggs out of the refrigerator (first I OPENED the door), then breaking the eggs into the pan and cooking them, and finally serving the imaginary eggs to the students. I could tell they were all following the mime because they all politely said 'thank you' when I delivered the imaginary eggs on their imaginary plates.

Just when I thought we were home free, the student on my right hazarded a question.
'Fry an airplane?'
I suddenly realized we had the quintessential Chinese exercise in front of us. I drew a picture of an airplane and of a frying pan with an egg, and labeled the pictures "fry an egg" and "fly an airplane", and spoke each sentence clearly while I gestured to the pictures. They nodded with interest, and then I asked them to repeat after me. We were flying eggs and frying airplanes (or airpranes). Finally I actually heard some distinguishable 'R's and 'L's. I was as excited as if I had won the lottery.

After class they all thanked me. Some of them thanked me in both English and Chinese. First in Mandarin, then Cantonese, and then another dialect. I was trying to listen to the Mandarin to learn the word for 'teacher', so Wei Fung considerately wrote it down for me. In Chinese of course.