Just thought we would share a few funny moments from English Club. We have English Club every Wednesday evening for anyone who wants to come. It is very casual, we usually just play games and have conversation.

~ Some time ago we played Apples to Apples, the word was strange. Everyone put in their cards and the winner was Super Bowl. I chuckled and asked why they chose that word to match with strange. They said “it would be strange to see such a big bowl.” Ha! They all laughed too once I told them it had nothing to do with a bowl but with American football!

~ Another time we were playing a game that involved describing items without directly saying it. The word was actually meatloaf but no one knew what that was. I said “its ground meat in the shape of bread.” Everyone got it and instantly wanted to try this bread shaped meat.

~ During the same game, the word was bull. The student said “the husband of a female cow.” It took everyone some time but they eventually got the word. I thought it was a clever description!

Every year we have a Christmas party for English club, every year we have lots of food, every year we have the Christmas gift exchange. Everyone loves to come and have fun. We usually sing some carols, share what we will be doing for the holidays and then have our gift exchange.

It is always fun to see how people react to the gift exchange. We do the classic “steal” the gift game. This is really hard for people to understand and to accept. Some people just can’t bring themselves to take a gift from someone. (One year, for our staff party we did the gift exchange and the only people who stole a gift were the two Americans…) Somehow our English club has managed to get over the usual hesitation of stealing and they really get into the game.

Group shot

This past spring I was able to teach a very short course on speaking. This was not any speaking class, it was for those wanting to pass the IELTS exam, or International English Language Testing System. Scary sounding isn’t it?

Deep in conversation

It was a small class but I was happy to have a chance to teach some English. They really wanted to focus on speaking since that is the hardest to practice or study for and is really best done with a native English speaker.

Sorting phrasal verbs

We did simple activities such as sorting phrasal verbs and collocations. We looked at common idioms and used them in speech. We put an end to dead, dumb, and boring words such as “good,” “like,” and “fine” to exchange them for more exciting words.

Can you answer these questions in a concise manner in 2-4 min?

There were basically lots of discussion times, all they really wanted was a place to practice speaking English. We went through a lot of practice test questions and just general chitchat. Overall, it was a great class and time well spent for all.

Two funny moments come to my mind from our TESOL time.

Moment #1

This is just an embarrassing moment for me, but it still makes me laugh. Let me introduce you to Doug. This is our TESOL instructor, the same one who taught me back in 2010. He’s a one-of-a-kind teacher.

Doesn’t he look like the kind of guy who deserves a noogie? If you knew him, you would agree. He likes to crack jokes and tease so he really does deserve a noogie.

Well he was being his usual self, teasing me for something or other, doesn’t matter. I’ll just tell you here that I was not in my right mind, I had just returned from a crazy bus ride that lasted all night and I was still reeling from the lack of sleep.

Doug made some smart remark and I simply responded with “Oh I just want to give you a noogie!” At least that’s what I said in my head. What actually came out was not noogie, but wedgie. Two very different things let me tell you. We had a good laugh about that one for quite a while.

Moment #2

Now that I have described Doug a bit you might also sympathize with what happened one day in class. Doug was teaching along, doin his thang. My fellow ruffians, Allison and Joanne, and I had had enough of his jackaboo antics and thought ‘we’ll teach him!’ We stormed the classroom and took over! Mutiny happened in Ternopil!

Yep, this really did happen. We tied him up, duct taped his bearded face, shoved him to the back of the class and took over the classroom. We taught for the rest of the day while he had to just sit there and listen.

The only referendum I have to make to this story is that it was actually Doug’s idea. Yeah, he wanted some fun way to change gears in the teaching and to introduce Allison, Joanne, and I to teaching the class. We taught on what it was like to use English in missions. He talked us into the mutiny idea, but we sure enjoyed doing it though!

TESOL has invaded Ternopil!!

It was a quick attack. They came, learned, and left. It was a whirlwind tour, some of us barely made it, most survived though.

They can be a scary bunch, just look at them.

Heebie jeebies all over. Intimidation is their game.

They come from all walks of life, from age ranges of 17 to 56, from Russia to New Zealand, from the USA to Ukraine. Throw in Canada for good measure and you got a crazy bunch of eager learners ready to tackle any bit of information!

They took on the English language with no fear! Sentence inversion you say? No problem! Gerunds? Piece of cake! Subjunctive adverbs? Don’t make me laugh! By the third week this ruthless bunch was begging for more.

Not only did they wrestle English into submission, they had time for working with English in a missions setting. You think English is tough enough for you? Try understanding how to use it in ministry overseas! We fed this class all they could handle on understanding cultures in the classroom, when to charge for a class and when not to, how and when to use evangelism in the classroom, working with limited resources, working with other organizations, having a multi-leveled class… I won’t overwhelm you with all the topics, you weren’t part of this English eating class.

At the end of three weeks we fed them English from a distance, with a stick. Don’t let their sweet smiles fool you, they were ravenous!