John:
English is hard. Just think for a second.... It's a carrot, I like carrots, Elba likes carrots, Richard doesn't like carrots... if you're a native speaker you probably wouldn't give that a second thought but consider what changes between these...

The Porteños get that it's a carrot. They think I like a carrot, until we have the discussion that that means all carrots. Then Elba (a nice lady of around 50) like a carrot, and we have the discussion about I like and she likes, which is, you know, not easy to explain when you consider you're teaching people whose vocab is being stretched by the addition of a carrot (and they're clever people, English is, as is becoming apparent, hard). Then we add that Richard doesn't likes a carrot and you get the whole "why the hell is there two more words in there now just to say Richard no like carrot" which is interesting.

Anyway, the upshot is, I enjoyed it and the class were all great, and that's pretty good because I feel I can do this now... only another 7 teaching lessons to go... tomorrow's is on Ireland, you think anyone in BA needs to know what a Leprechaun is?  ¶ 12:52 AM