MonkeyPants

Learning English

Today’s word: Taheda: finished.

Sometimes when people are learning a new language, funny things happen.

For instance, last week, when I was working with a student whose English is very poor, she was struggling to explain that her family had been down to the beach at low tide to dig up creatures and see what was there. Her name for the Jericho mud flats intertidal zone: The Tidelands. Much prettier, and somehow evocative of the deceptively long distance between the beach and the actual waves. In the Tidelands, you see Great Blue Herons, Purple Shore Crabs, Yellow Shore Crabs, Jingle Shells and Checkered Periwinkles. On the mud flats, you see some goopy stuff and some animals. No contest. She was on the Tidelands, and a better adventure she had for that.

Today I read a book report from a little fellow who got to a sad part of his book and struggled to come up with a way to communicate how this affected him. His report said, “It made my heart stop and cry.” Now doesn’t that kick ass on “It was sad”?

I love teaching English.