Tired of typical ELT dialogues?
I thought so. Try these with your classes, then:
Student A: How are you?
Student B: Old
Student A: How are you?
Student B: How am I? How should I be?
Student A: How are you?
Student B: How should I be, with my feet?
Student A: How’s your brother?
Student B: Dead
Student A: What’s doing?
Student B: Nothing
A: Nothing?
B: Nothing.
Student A: How was your weekend?
Student B: It should happen to my enemies
Student A: What time is it?
Student B: What am I, a clock?
In case you haven’t guessed they are all from Yiddish, specifically mainly from the surprisingly readable popular linguistics book Born to Kvetch. More good stuff from there coming on TEFLtastic soon.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Ha!
This blog is a treasure trove, Alex. A search on – well I can’t remember what now – brought me to this… and ‘Born to Kvetch’. And I think we might have this book on the shelf somewhere… gosh must go find it.
Thank you!
June 7th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Thank you, Vicki, nothing like a comment from a famous textbook writer to liven up my day!