This morning I taught a class & we were looking at specific problems that Czechs have with the English language. One of them concerns the word 'sympatik', which some Czechs use an an English word - though there is a slight difference between the meanings. 'Sympatik' from a Czech point of view means 'kind, friendly...nice' - whereas the English word which sounds like it - 'sympathetic' means 'expressing or feeling or resulting from sympathy or compassion or friendly fellow feelings'...a sort of understanding of someone's problems...
Later in the lesson, one of the students mobile phones 'peeped'! I proceeded to pull out a yellow card to punish Van the Man (the offending student)...to which he responded by saying, 'Mr.Everill...could you be sympathetic to me?' !!!
I was surprised by his quick-wittedness & charm....and seeing how he'd learnt what I asked him to, I did indeed show some sympathy & let the incident go :-)
It is so encouraging as a teacher when a student grasps something new!!
No comments:
Post a Comment