Monday, October 19, 2009

Letters to Shane

A couple weeks ago, I wanted my students to write a letter to an American pen friend (blast those UK textbook authors). I also wanted them to have something to be responding to, so I enlisted the help of my brother Shane. I asked him to write a letter to my classes describing his school life in America. He wrote me a slang filled, sarcastic, and grammatically incorrect letter that put American students to shame. I know he was just joking. But so was I when I gave his email address to all of my 1,500 students, so that they could email him back. 

Too bad none of them know how to operate anything outside of QQ (Chinese MSN messenger). I was really hoping that he would open his email to find thousands of letters that went something like this:

Dear Shame, (yep, Shame)

First of all, let me introduce myself to you. My Chinese name is 啊鸭. My English name is Tina. I am from China. I'm 16 years old and I really want to make a friend with you. If you wouldn't mind. at weekend, I very like watch TV and with aunt go shop. I space time is hand-outing and write. I'm study high school. I enjoyed subject is English. chemistry. and physics. I am interested in read composition books. 

Ok, now would you mind asking some questions?

1. do you like China?
2.Would you please tell me about you life in America?
3. do you like Dong'an food?
4. do you rather to friends?
5. would you mind give me a photo of you?

thats all my questions. Thank you answer this question. I hope the magazine will pass the litter to you soon.

Best wishese:
啊鸭

Want to know how I know they would all look like this? Because a couple of my student opted to give me their letters to pass on to Shane (or Shame, as I shall now call him). All of the letters I received followed this format, and I put the best two letters together for you! And yes, I carefully checked the entire letter to make sure that I quoted the authors exactly. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me, but I very like teaching. 

3 comments:

Olivia Carter said...

Shane.... (shaking my head)... let me know if you still want some letters some of my young women would LOVE IT!

April Carter said...

I like to hear Chinese english. I might be able to get some of our kids at church to write.

Anonymous said...

He He i'll drown him today at practice