The ichinensei were given worksheets to go around interviewing classmates about likes and dislikes. They had to ask, “Do you like… art, judo, computer*, baseball, cooking, juice, English, basketball, music?”
First of all, the worksheet was off to a great start. It was titled “I don’t like English.” The interview example given was:
A: I like English. Do you like English?
B: No, I don’t. I don’t like English.
At the end of the exercise there was an area at the bottom to fill in the blanks.
I _______ __________. Do _________ like __________?
No, _____ ___________. I __________ like English.
___ _________ _________. _____ _______ _______ _______?
_____, ____ ___________. __ _______ ______ ___________.
Actually, now that I look at the mass of blanks, it’s a bit confusing, ne? But most of them managed to figure out that more blanks involved “I don’t like.”
I walked around the class helping students fill in the blanks. One girl had written, “I like umesseyu.”
Umesseyu? “What is that?”
“Sake.”
Ah. Yummy, yummy plum wine. Well aren’t you a little young at age 12 or 13 to be liking alcohol? But whatever, I’m always for a little juvenile delinquency.
“Umeshu,” I spelled for her on her paper. I’m pretty sure that’s the standard of how we transcribe it to romaji.
I moved down the row and looked over the shoulder of a boy.
“I like six. Do you like six?”
My diaphragm convulsed with silent laughter. I grabbed the boy’s paper and pencil. I drew an arrow pointing up from the word “six” and wrote “6” and then just moved along. From the front of the class I saw the boy conferencing with the girl in front of him. He kept his head lowered. He looked anxious and embarrassed for the rest of the class. When he finally turned in his paper he had erased the arrow and 6 and had changed his answer to “I like english.” He also never wrote his name on his paper.
And there were still kids in the class that answered “Yes, I am.” to “Do you like juice?” At least this time the subject of the sentence (I) was correct.
*I have yet to figure out a good way to explain when classes of nouns should be plural and when they should be singular. What is the difference between “I like strawberries.” and “I like cake.”? As far as I can tell, you just have to be a native English speaker and memorize the different expressions to know. This is something the JTEs have not mastered. If there’s anyone out there with any advice on how to explain the differences, let me know.
strawberry is a count noun, cake is a non-count noun, like grass or rice. As in: would you like three strawberries, four blueberries, five cars, six ipods? Those are count nouns. Non-count nouns go like so: Would you like two pieces of cake, three blades of grass, four grains of rice? You can’t say “rices,” and “Cakes” and “Grasses” take on different meanings when plural.
this tends to affect article usage as well. For example, one wouldn’t have much reason to say “a rice,” or “a grass.” HOWEVER! One might say “a cake!” it’s articles that are the bugbear of all.
Comment by TEFL star — June 19, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Is there any simple way to tell students how to predict when to use the plural vs singular (noncount nouns vs count nouns)? Keeping in mind that I don’t speak Japanese and the JTE’s ability to understand complex concepts in English is limited.
Comment by gaijzilla — June 19, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
there may be…I tend to think that it’s a bit like gender in the french language, though–you just have to memorize it and internalize it. Like idioms and collocations, too. why do we say “low battery” but not “high battery?” who the fuck knows? You just learn it and use it until it’s in their noggins, eh? Don’t be too hard on yourself! It is hard stuff. Sometimes with kids it’s enough to teach it and say “that’s the way it is.” That’s how we learned it, after all!
It might not be remiss to do a whole noncount noun lesson, though, with paper cakes that come apart in pieces, bags of rice, etc etc, and get the students to start saying “piece of cake” and “grain of rice” and then “eight grains of rice,” “Three cakes,” and “five pieces of cake, and “four pieces of cake from two cakes.” Could be fun!
Comment by TEFL star — June 20, 2007 @ 3:31 am
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/nouns/noncount.htm
Comment by TEFL star — June 20, 2007 @ 6:04 am