Teacher: WHAT DOES THIS WORD MEAN, JACK. /ancient greek Me: I haven't done this for a year, so I haven't recommitted the tables to memory. I could look it up, if you'd like? Teacher: ... Me: ...
Sometimes it was also "Student! I command you to read my mind!" Like the time the question was "I am thinking of five words that describe the theme of this section of Thucydides. What are those five words?"
my kids are used to a very rigid format where they don't actually have to learn or remember anything outside of the format so I try to mix it up and be like "no try it this way, yes now"
When I teach Latin, I do ask lots of parsing and grammar questions, but it's always in the context of whatever sentence we're translating. And if someone looks like they're struggling or terrified, I let them
When I ask questions like, "What do you know about Virgil?" it's open to the whole class and it really is just me getting a gauge on how much the class in general knows so I don't bore them with stuff they
I'm not fond of putting students on the spot with surprise questions. It's a bit terror provoking, and especially hard on extreme introverts (I think) who often have to spent some time to draw up courage to
The thing is, out in Japan we're faced with basically having entire classrooms of kids who will freeze up "on the spot," even if that "on the spot" is casually asking how they are or framing a question in a
slightly different way from the way they memorized it in the textbook, so if we completely refuse to inflict a little "terror" our options become limited
I play taboo with them, you know, having them explain words without using the word itself, and I've got a girl who froze up and almost started crying over the words "movie," "bed," and "ball."
Him: JACK, WHAT IS THE FEMININE PAST PARTICIPLE OF TO SEE Me: /gets half of it, on the last bit Him: this is really easy, you know this one Me: I totally don't Him: yes you do
Me: I really don't
Him: ...:|
Me: I haven't done this for a year, so I haven't recommitted the tables to memory. I could look it up, if you'd like?
Teacher: ...
Me: ...
Me: /gets half of it, on the last bit
Him: this is really easy, you know this one
Me: I totally don't
Him: yes you do Me: I really don't Him: ...:|