Weird words/tandem teaching

Any of you who’ve used Snack Attack in class know that “vending machine” and “train station” are important words for the video. It’s true that a wiser teacher than I am could easily get around them, but in Russian, they’re pretty useful words anyway.

Enter my co-teacher for a class today. I sent her a little note asking whether she could work those words into our lesson, and otherwise didn’t have time to plan with her. I got a Special Person slide ready that would ask her how she gets to work, and included “train” on it, but other than that, was out of ideas. And the words were still not really part of that question, though I think I could have found out whether her town has a big train station, and whether she ever eats from the vending machines –

So what did she do? When I asked her how she was, she said right away that she was fine, but that Turin (she is teaching in Alaska from Italy) is in red-zone lockdown. All the restaurants and bars have to close by six o’clock. We were all appropriately horrified and interested, and she went on to say that some people don’t want to eat at home. The only place they can go for food after hours is the train station!! And guess what…her sushi-loving husband can get his treat out of a vending machine at the train station.

When I think of all the times that I have written critical words on the board and done personal questions around them, when I could have just asked a tandem-teacher to jump into story based on fact … oh, yeah. I’m not usually this lucky. I love teaching with Victoria!

A recent prediction said that the online “foreign” language business is going to grow by leaps and bounds in the next few years. I hope it’s true, and in that case, all of us need to find our tandem teaching partners and get ready for an explosion of opportunity and fun.

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