Day Four

Every week, my students learn ten new vocabulary words. The most effective way to teach vocabulary is to have students read the word in the context of a sentence. Often teachers pick words from the book that their students are reading to achieve this goal. The only problem though is students often don't look up the definition until after they've seen it in the book. To counteract this, I write my own sentences like so...

1) In lieu of paying the contractor the $2,000.00 he owes him, the attorney has agreed to work off his bill by furnishing his friend with solid legal advice.

2) The contractor is being sued for lewd behavior by a woman of ninety-four.

3) The whole thing is one giant misunderstanding that needs to be rectified.

4) The contractor, a portly man with a giant posterior, has trouble buying pants that fit so he has to buy trousers that are very large.

5) An absentminded man, the contractor forgot to wear his belt the day he visited the ninety four year olds’ house and when he climbed up the ladder, his pants fell down, right in front of the old woman’s bedroom window!

6) The contractor suddenly found himself in a precarious position. If he tried to pull up his pants, he’d most certainly fall off the ladder so he did nothing, rationalizing that the senior citizens would see the humor in it. After all, his boxers had rainbows on them.

7) Quite to the contrary, the old woman saw no humor in it. Shocked, she dropped an antique teapot worth $10,000.00, breaking it into a million pieces.

My students read the underlined words and then try to guess what they mean. Afterwards, everyone shares, and I help them figure out the correct definitions. Easy. I get the words from a SAT book and everyone's happy.

Here's a little excerpt from today. The key words being lewd and precarious.

Teacher - What do you think precarious means?

Students #1 - Stuck in a hard position?

The class laughs!

Student #2 - Stuck in a hard position? That's so lewd!

See they're learning!

And that in a nutshell is why I still like teaching.

Signing off.

Birds-Eye