Caveat: Cha

I said to my student, "Whatcha doin?"

He shrugged.

"Do you understand my question?" I asked. He was a fairly advanced student.

He shook his head.

I slowed it down, but I deliberately retained the phonological contractions, because I had an intuition as to the problem, and I was curious. "What cha doin?" I repeated. I was turning it into a lesson.

There was a long pause. Then he asked, "What is 'cha'?" He was perplexed.

Indeed. Here's the thing: he's not a beginning student. If ever there was a sign that the kids need more interaction with native speakers, this was it.

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