English From Zero

dogme@yahoogroups.com

Message: 8413 From: djn@dennisnewson.de Received: Fr Apr 22, 2005 11:48 Subject: Re: Re: English from zero Hi, Dan, Well, at one period in my career, when I taught in a middle school in Doha, Qatar, that was exactly the situation: my learners hadn't a single word of English, not even the scatalogical ones, and I had only one word of Arabic - safajal, a quince. I had to ask friends what this was in Arabic because none of the dictionaries around told me and because I couldn't draw one, because I'd never seen one. It turned out the children hadn't seen one either, so the Arabic word wasn't much help. You make me remember - it wasn't just that, but for the first year, I think it was, the boys (it was a boys' school) couldn't write, either. I really did demonstrate, act out, draw everything. I had to. And there were lots of oral drills and chorus work - Row A: 'What's the time?" Row B: " 12 o'clock." Row c "Oh no it isn't!" That sort of thing. But it worked. Proof? As I walked through the souk (aka market) I often used to hear the words, frequently from an unseen boy: "Will you stop talking and SIT DOWN!" [With apologies to all those who have been subjected to an earlier version of this anecdote.]