Teaching high school students sometimes means being the target of insults. I think it's the moodiness that comes with being a teenager. It's not very healthy for me because it just makes me feel like responding with some not very kind thoughts. I've realized the best way is to respond with a discussion about grammar.
Student: "Wow if I was you I would never have studied English. It's so dumb."
yea so dumb That's why you can't understand it.
smiling "Well now, that's a great example of when you should use the subjunctive. This is wishful thinking, so you should have said if I were you... Let's discuss that."
--
Meeting my student after a sleepless night of cramming for exams and wearing my woody allen glasses...
Student:"What have you been doing? You look awful." :smirk:
nice to see you too. sigh.
sitting slowly "That's interesting, you chose to use the present progressive verb tense... Let's talk about how you would conjugate that. What about the past does the present progressive suggest? Why shouldn't you have used the present perfect tense? Let's discuss that."
--
Student:"Why aren't you wearing makeup today? Your face looks better when you do."
well too bad nothing can be done about your face...
"Well that's a good example of using parallel construction when comparing things... map out this sentence. Let's discuss that."
It's like conditioning. Insult me and we will learn grammar until it's painful.
