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| This picture really makes me want to carve a pumpkin! I haven't yet... |
Things began with a serious scare for some students and sweet treat for others. I handed back their much-anticipated tests. My classes' range was from 39.5%--92%. Three people (two girls and one boy) got 92s and only 1 person got a 39.5. Of my 35 students, 8 failed the quiz by earning a grade of less than 60%. The median, mean and mode averages were all in the 70s. I asked around, and I hear that this is great. My colleague was really impressed that with such a large class I had so many people doing so well. Though, of course, I wanted all of my students in the 90s, it was a big test with many tricky questions, so I'm proud of how well everyone did.
Also--one really nice thing is that the university is going to create obligatory (but technically not mandatory) supplementary lessons for the students who failed. This wasn't much consolation for some of the students who got the bad scores...but I know at least one will be glad.
Anyway, so after we went over the exams, we finished chapter 9 of our book, and began doing grammar reference work and reviewing for their next test, which is on Tuesday. Thursdays are long days for our class, but on this one I reserved one whole period for an "American cultural presentation"on Halloween and another whole period for our weekly "Friday Music Medley"--moved to Thursday since there would be no class on real Friday.
To present All Hallow's Eve, I taught my students about trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving. I taught them how to say, "Trick or treat, trick or treat--Give me something good to eat! and read them the "Five Little Pumpkins" poem. We watched Donald Duck get tricked by his nephews. I tried to tell them about the connection between All Saints Day, and how on that day we (used to) celebrate all the good people, but that on the night before that day--Halloween--all the bad things (witches, vampires and monsters) were supposed to come out and celebrate themselves. Anyway, I think they understood that Halloween's mostly just for fun now.
Mine are clever students, so it wasn't long until they asked if I really still celebrate Halloween--or if it's just for kids. I said, "Of course! I celebrate Halloween!" If I'd been in America this Halloween, I would have dressed up with my sister as a character from The Jersey Shore--which they don't know about, but neither do I really. They asked if there are Halloween parties, and I told them the truth--that there are and that they're awesome. Because I couldn't think of anything else demonstrating an American Halloween party, we watched a youtube clip from "Mean Girls" of Katy's embarrassing first Halloween party. It wasn't a perfect clip, but it was fine. Afterwards all the boys wanted to move to America.
For our Music Medley, I selected the classic and oh-so-spooky "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. It was great, but kind of fast so my kids had a hard time filling in all of the blanks. I think they liked it, though, because they love Michael Jackson. Who doesn't??
Maybe after watching it, you can understand that it's a little fast, but so good and Halloween-y and spooky. (My favorite gross part is when the one zombie has green stuff coming out of his mouth. It's so gross every time!) Next week, I have to choose something slower. One of my students requested the Titanic theme song...if you have any suggestions, let me know!
Much love from me on this sunny beautiful day in Yalova!
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