Well, we never did get back to George Washington Carver in our English lessons. Instead, I had to explain the word lesson, and then lessen, and listen, which sound very similar. This lead us to shorten, lengthen and extension. Somehow we ended up on imitation, artificial, and pretend. Pretend was accompanied by play acting-- I had to pretend to die a couple of times, very dramatically. I believe it is called ham acting, but we didnt talk about that. But it brought us around to common phrases at work, like: Pretend you didnt see that. I will pretend I didnt see that. Lets pretend that never happened. Dont ask me to explain why those phrases have been used, because I wont tell. It never happened. I also had to imitate birds, cats, and annoying people at work. And I had to draw artificial limbs on little outline people. One thing I love about teaching is how creative I have to be to really explain the meaning of words. I even get to use ancient history. My student was asking about a term for when he goes to the store for his car. I finally figured out he was talking about the auto parts counter. But then I had to explain where the words automobile and car came from: auto, Latin for self; mobile, Latin for able to move. So the literal translation is: it moves itself. And that took us to chariots and carriages. A car was the part of the chariot which carried the person driving the chariot. The word was extended (the root word of extension) to carriage for more complex vehicles to transport people. And all of these years I thought my head was just full of not necessarily interesting trivial facts which were of no use to anyone whatsoever. Well, they still probably are, but at least they help with English lessons.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 04:40:34 +0000