Another Crap Lesson - Tim Flowers

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others. He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the glitterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night. He likes beer.

..well that was a wasted lesson I have to say. Amongst the top 10 (or so) wasted lessons I've ever taught. They just simply weren't getting it. I hardly got a chance to get any reading in, only about 25 pages of the Social Contract by Rousseau which I've been holding up in the trolleybus so people can see the cover these past days, and the thickos already started having problems with dependent prepoisitions. You'd have thought that by elementary level that would have sunk in by now, particularly as I gave a 25 minute explanation on the topic, and was even good enough to intersperse this with my views on the US political landscape, all for nothing.

Since the previous lesson, when I just decided to rest my eyes for a couple of minutes whilst said group were working through a badly photocopied set of exercises I'd taken from a book I randomly grabbed 5 minutes before the class, I'm sure they have all decided to be dead set against me. It's because they're evil capitalists, I can see it now. One of them, some 20 something blonde whose daddy works in a bank or something unforgiveable like that, had the gall to suggest I was anything other than a resounding success for renting at an overpriced rate off of an old lady in Kopli. What does she know? I remember watching the Tiananmen square massacre (on a black and white TV in a bedsit in Lewisham) probably a bit before some of these people were born.

Then when we went into my special quick fire period of asking questions, somebody didn't laugh at my witticism about Stalin sounding a bit like 'starling'. And to cap it off, somebody's mobile went off despite the fact that I vaguely gestured towards the 'switch mobiles off' sign, three months ago at the beginning of the course.

Now I hear one of them is off to Thailand. I'm sure they won't give it the respect it's due, merely coming back with talk of temples and lady boys instead of the real Thailand, that I saw, on the inside of a police cell having had the strength of character to have got drunk on Guiness.

Oh well, it's nearly the Christmas break soon, when I won't have to interrupt my day of sitting on wikipedia and facebook and cutting out bits of paper to attend to these sheep. Happy days are coming.

Tim Flowers Is Back..

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others. He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the glitterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night. He likes beer.

Hi all, sorry I haven't posted here in a while, the fact is I've been really busy, much more so than any of you.

I was mumbling to the white board through a hangover to a group of bemused students who just weren't getting it, misquoting all or any of Hunter S. Thompson, Blake, and Sid Vicious as I did so, that intelligence isn't so much a function of lateral cognitive ability nor even anterior conditioning as it is an expression of one's readiness to broaden the mind, through  taking a lot of drugs and reading in three months almost halfway through a 200 page book with a lurid pink cover, then spouting off about it down the pub

I could definitely have gone to Oxford or Cambridge, since I'm a genius, but I screwed up my A levels and went to Nuneaton Tutorial College instead.  Anyway I wouldn't have fitted in with those unenlightened people who called themselves an elite when I was busy opening all of the doors and windows of perception. This was 'cos I was doing loads and loads of drugs: gear, charlie, unabombers, vitamin K, you name it; there's nothing I haven't done since I'm so cool and I've seen so much more of the world than those hick billy government officials, company directors and airline pilots that I teach, no that they realize that.

The Guardian told me the other day to think that Chomsky is the latter day hero of the library-bound anarchist and I think this is true, certainly I was good enough to announce it in a crowded pub whilst having an argument with a spoilt brat who's never done a hard day's graft in their life, not like my upbringing in urban Towcester.

You know, I'm really pleased that I've got such a good mind, I was able to read the introduction to a biography  of Chomsky just last year, and applied that to a lesson once (by mentioning his name. Afterwards, when most of the people had gone).

Well, gotta go and observe a lesson and provide a pithy and incisive critique afterwards, and help some twenty year old who hasn't seen anything of the world

A New Concept in English Coursebooks - Part Three

The third (and finallest) instalment in our merry ESL book..

INTERNATIONAL REALIA     


In international Realia, you get clear, relevant and accurate information about cultures around the world. You will get a chance to ‘sample’ their food (well, look at a picture), look at a very large scale postage stamp map of the world that makes the Mappa Mundi look like it was done on CAD, and hear one of the actors noted above putting on their best Manuel from Fawlty Towers, or the guy at the end of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum who used to sing ‘land of hope and glory’ in a Indian accent  before being told to ‘shaaaadaaaap’,  voices.

Sample listening script  from Unit 2, ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’:

Ho ho, Italians ride around on Vespa scooters eating ice cream, shouting ‘mamma mia’ and ‘belissimo’, whereas all Americans like to eat apple pie, drink root beer and play baseball every single day (near one of those yellow school buses). Irish people go to the pub all the time, drink Guinness and they like the ‘craic’. Germans are always on time for meetings and nothing ever breaks down. People in Africa on the other hand all have leprosy and they don’t know what rain is.


b) Sample discussion exercise:
 Place the following international heroes into the correct order (hint, the order does not need to be changed):

1)Comrade Lenin
2)Comrade Stalin
3)Comrade Krushchev
4)Comrade Kalinin
5)Comrade Gagarin
6)Comrade Stravinsky
7)Comrade Eisenstein
8)Comrade Tereshkova
9)Comrade Kasparov
10)Comrade Yashin





You may be interested in other products in the ULTIMATE range:


TEENZONE

‘YO! What’s goin’ down my main man?
We’re gonna be checking out some of the bestest bands around today – Tears for Fears, the Rocksteady Crew, and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch are just three of dem. There’s gonna be loads of wicked info about the new ‘hula hoop’ craze that’s just come out of the States, and also ‘bodypopping’. Bodypoppers wear tracksuits, often in bright colours, and modern-style sneakers made by such hot brands as Slazenger. The music bodypoppers listen to has a heavy ‘beat’, and dancers are able to invent tonnes of brilliant new dancing moves. Would you like their job, dude?
Wot’s your fave music? Doo wop? Or skiffle? Or maybe you prefer the smooth sounds of West Coast Jazz, Dave Brubeck and all that gang. Drop us a telegram and let us know’.

….phew – I need a can of tizer already! That’s just a teensy peek at what you can get from the coolest language learning course in the universe. And it’s only 9.99 in the shops now, part 2 free with part 1, and there’s a free Limahl poster inside. Respect!


BUSINESSPRAT*

Quote of the day:
‘Hit ‘em. Hit ‘em hard. Hit ‘em where it hurts. And when you’re through with that, hit ‘em again’.
Walter Z. Gneisenauer, CNTCorp.

Look, you don’t have time for this, and you don’t want to go back to school – you dropped out at age 16 with only 2 qualifications, remember, but you’ve worked your way to the top through grit, determination, reading the right crappy management speak publications, and by murdering a couple of people. Well now you can put all thoughts of wasting time with your head in a book with ‘Businessprat’*, the newest concept to hit the market. No needlessly long words are used. Portable enough to use on the road or in flight (executive class). Each unit has six Bullets, which are aimed at giving you the facts and nothing more. All in no more time than it takes to loose off a couple of emails to Shanghai. Ultimate English ‘Businessprat’* range. It’s got legs.

Bullets:
• Agenda – what have we got in this unit? We run a few ideas up the flagpole.
• Are you serious? – the position as it is now, includes listening sections, all recorded by       REALLY SUCCESSFUL corporate men and women.
• Fast Facts – let’s do a lunch, synergise, network, put all our cards on the table, give it to them straight and roll out the most kick ass knowledge sharing depository the boardroom has ever seen. You’ll find our ‘earn language dollars’ marking system sexy as well.
• 15 second discussion window – because money multiplied by time and divided by   information equals goals.
• Grammar Hammer – yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, it’s for geeky perpetual students who earn less in a year than you spend on lattes with cinnamon to go, but if you wanna get ahead you have to sound professional. Includes Brit section.
• The Bottom Line – at the end of the day, this sums up the overarching points, in the final analysis. Presented in familiar ‘meeting minutes’ format.


‘BusinessPrat’* from Ultimate English. Because money is an uncountable noun.

*now available for Blackberries, Green Gauges and other devices.


Have you visited our website yet? Why not, you twat?
www.ultimate-english.net.

The first part of can be viewed here whereas for the second you must click thusly.

A New Concept in English Coursebooks - Part Two

Part two of the new English coursebook which has got everyone running amok in the Puumaja..

TIME FOR SKILLS

Sample mingling exercise from Unit 7, ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’

Imagine that you are the finance director of the third largest gypsum warehouse in New Malden, Surrey, England. You are networking with colleagues in the plasterboard business. Move around the room asking questions with the other classmates and respond to their questions. Now switch roles. And switch again, doubling back. Now complete the table below.

	Introductory phrases	agreeing	disagreeing	Talking gyspum
Student A	‘hello…’ ‘how do you do..’		‘no I don’t agree with that’	‘gypsum is good…’
Student B		‘yes I agree’… Yes, mmm…		‘I just bought some new gypsum…’

GRAMMAR EXPLANATION PLUS+

In grammar explanation plus, you get a clear, concise and relevant explanation of a grammatical point. We do not allow important grammatical points such as the use of articles (which are not covered) to be included at the expense of other less obvious points, which native speakers use biannually in the odd letter here and there, and in any case get it wrong.

Real life example from Unit 10, ‘With a Little Help from my Friends’:

Present subjunctive using phrasal (sometimes called multi-word) verbs in conditionally reported speech, where they subject is not present, and in the passive.

Example:

He said the Ferrari would be bought by him if he were a rich man getting off on the salary given him.

Complete the rule:

The____ is used when_____.

...to be continued some more. You can see the first part here if you like.

A New Concept in English Coursebooks - Part One

The  Puumaja and its resident ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher Tim Flowers just had to publish this synopsis which dropped on our desk some time ago. It covers a new ESL  coursebook which we think puts all the others (Deadway, International Depress, Cutting Wrists etc) to shame..The synopsis is quite long so'll be published in parts..



 

ULTIMATE ENGLISH from University Press Ltd.

Ultimate English is a fresh, dynamic and revolutionary new concept in Actualized Realistic Stipendiary English (ARSE) learning. It is built around fundamental core needs of the student’s interactional linguistic and intuitive framework and aims to synergise his or her deductive assimilation without detracting from essential lexical and cognitive necessities.

Each unit is divided into SIX sections as follows.

INTRODUCTION

Our units compete mercilessly with one another in trying to find the dullest, most soul-destroying introductory topic imaginable, thus rendering any potential chance of discussion still-born. Unit-by-unit you will be enthralled by such hot issues as ‘stones and where they come from’, ‘the first time I went to a furniture shop’, and ‘what is it like to grow up in Llanelli?’ Debate will be provoked from the outset with such questions as : ‘Do you have cups in your country? If so, how do you use them?’, ‘how old are the people in these pictures and how old are you?’, and ‘what is the worst personal health issue you have had to visit the doctor with and how was it treated?’

LISTENING

Our team has assembled a group of ‘resting’ actors, all of them card-carrying equity members. We salute their valiant efforts to inject some sort of meter into scripts which would make public service information narrators run off a pier. Don’t worry though, we present a range of very, very convincing accents from around the Anglophone world, rather than using, say a British actor to ‘go american’ for the odd unit or two. Because we’d never do that.

DISCUSSION CORNER

Sample discussion lead-in from Unit 2, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’:

What do you know about these world famous people?

-Britney Spears

-Vladimir Putin

-Madonna

-Dimitri Medvedev

-Christina Agueleira

-Yuri Andropov

-the one from the Pussycat Dolls who goes out with Lewis Hamilton.

-Felix Dzerzhinsky

- Ricky Martin

- Aleksei Leonov

- Glen Medeiros

-Lev Yashin

- Leona Lewis

-Viktor Korchnoi

Which of them can you identify with the most?

 
...to be continued.
 

Hilarious Xmas Traditions

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others. He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the glitterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night. He likes beer.
It's Christmas time, mistletoe and wine and so I thought that I'd ensure that I was worth every last penny of the fairly sizeable amount that the students have spent on my 'lessons' by finishing off term with a list of unusual, and really very amusing, xmas traditions from around the world. They must be true because I found the list on one of my colleague's desk, which was I think a copy of a copy of a copy of something from a now-defunct ESL website called "English language drop in shop" or something like that, I dunno I've never actually used the internet to put together teaching materials; my genius lies within the confines of my own cerebral cortex, ever able to come up with a dazzling array of explanations, games and anecdotes to keep them coming back for more (at least until the end of the course).
Anyway, here they are, brace yourself:

• In Luxembourg, children must skip anti-clockwise around an old, dead cat-sock (whatever that may be) before they can receive their present.
• Christmas is actually celebrated on 14th June in Kiribati. This is because it is in the Southern Hemisphere and, due to time zone differences, the day corresponds with 25th December in the Northern Hemisphere.
• A traditional Christmas dinner in England consists of turkey, cranberry sauce and, titter, mince pies, which aren't really pies at all, more like something like a giant jaffa cake.
• In Scotland, Christmas is called "Hogmanay" and culminates in the ritual slaughter of a pretend haggis.
• Instead of Father Christmas, children in Armenia can look forward to their presents being delivered by a spotty youth on a BMX.
  
• Due to a bye-law dating back to the regime of Oliver Cromwell, which has somehow been overlooked and remains on the statute book, the residents of Twickledrie in Southern Scotland are forbidden to celebrate Christmas.
• In Latvia, it is customary to drink Riga Balzams, an unholy concoction sold in strange-looking bottles, with holly sprigs.
  

So, looks like the final lesson's gonna be a laugh a minute.

Cultural Reducator TIm Flowers

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others.
He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamorous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the gliterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night.
He likes beer.

Managed to get through a whole lesson today without once using the textbook. Now, your run of the mill ESL teacher wouldn't be able to do this, mind, but I can wing this as I've been doing it so long, and I managed to get it down to a fine art, with just me talking for an hour and a half about US politics, something I know a lot about, the knowledge from which I know my students are all really keen to benefit
I see myself as a cultural re-educator; for years people in this country were cut off by a system which, whilst sound in its principles (Marx being a really sound person, something I know all about having read the first 11 pages of "Das Kapital" on the trolleybus before proceeding to sound off about it to all and sundry) was deformed in its execution. Trotsky 'now there would have been your man, such a shame they had to shoot him. Anyway as I was saying before I interuptted [sic - ed ](my flow of genius, these people who I teach really know nothing. They're all racist (probably) and they've hardly lived or seen anything of the real world. Well, one or two of them go on regular business trips to North America and the far east, and another just got back from a holiday in the Cayman Islands, but they're just tourists, they've no idea about how it really is for ordinary people. Forgot to set homework, as the students had already packed up and started leaving before I'd finished (we'd only overrun by about 14 minutes), oh well, homework is the Sanatogen of the masses, I don't believe in it (and I don't want to have to mark it either), surely just the honour of having me as their teacher is enough? Now, just for a quick ciggie break before I announce, unsolicited and uninvited, to everyone in the staffroom that that lesson I just taught was 'shit' (it wasn't really) though not because of me (I spent a full 8 minutes preparing it) but because of demotivated, unenthusiastic and lazy students...javascript:void(0)

Introducing The Puumaja Crew's Latest Addition

Tim Flowers is an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher based in the capital city of one of the baltic states. He is 42 years old. His previous job was working for the Post Office (main sorting office - as a superintendent) and this excellent and relevant background has given him a good grasp of the fundamentals of the English language, and the art of teaching it to others.
He hails, as he likes to say, from Northamptonshire in England, a very glamourous part of the world indeed, and so is not at all out of place mingling with the gliterati of the Old Town where he hangs out on a Friday or Saturday night.
He likes beer.
We join Tim's diary of an ESL teacher just as he is emerging, pumped and swearing, from a successful lesson...

Staff Room Rant

F*ck me, those f*cking students are really starting to piss  me off...
...oh it's you, sorry, I thought I was in the staff room again, gobbing off about how hopeless a group of pre-intermediates were in grasping my cursory and mumbled treatment of what is actually a conceptually very difficult area of English grammar (and which I don't understand myself, incidentally).
Yes, these students are such easy targets; spending good time and money and erroneously seeming to expect English lessons from me  in return.
Ha ha, they aren't as smart as me, since I got my diploma in post office relations and scraped a TEFL qualification, after having spent a drunken weekend in this city and, purely on that basis, decided I wanted to live here .
I had to laugh today, somebody in an elementary group said 'in every Russia there is a problem'..yes, I got a lot of mileage in the staffroom announcing it to all and sundry. Never mind that I don't speak a single foreign language myself (though I like to put myself forward as an expert on which lanuages are inflectional and which aren't, how many cases they have, articles, personal pronouns etc ...).
Anyway I have to fninish now, have to go and prepare a lesson on the present perfect continuous; so that'll kill five minutes anyway.