Caveat: Call your lawyer

We were doing a speaking book task, where there is a "set up" situation, and students have to then explain what they will say in the given situation.

In this particular set up, it described a situation where the student has borrowed a friend's phone, only to drop it and break the screen accidentally.

So the students had to, presumably, say something to the effect of: "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I broke your phone. I feel so terrible. I will buy you a new one… "

Anyway, this is actually a really hard task for these students – the book is a bit too hard for their ability level. They just don't have the fluency or active vocabulary to make this happen smoothly. So to make it easier, I spend a good portion of each class describing the situation, acting it out in detail, writing down possible response fragments.

I try to solicit possible words, ideas, and such from the students. One boy, a bit of a contrarian, likes to imagine being a jerk in such situations. So he said, "I feel happy."

I ran with it.

"Right! What if you don't like your friend?" I brainstormed.

"I feel happy. I broke it, so what?" I wrote on the board. The boy scribbled this down diligently. He knew what his speech would look like, now.

I added some more fragments. "It's your phone, deal with it." I spent some time explaining the expression "deal with it."

One girl, normally completely silent, suggested. "I feel joy."

"Joy?" I said, pleased to see her participating. "Not just happy, but joy? You hate your friend?"

She nodded.

"So then what?" I asked. "What if your friend calls a lawyer?"

I spent about 5 minutes explaining what a lawyer was. I explained the concept of "small claims court" – without trying to introduce the vocabulary. The kids were more or less familiar with the idea – there are cheesy courtroom reality shows in Korea, just like in the US.

Without missing a beat, the normally silent girl said, almost inaudibly but clearly, "OK. Call the lawyer with your broken phone."

I was impressed.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

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