Thursday, April 16, 2015
Death to the dilettante! Or...
I really like sweet potatoes.
The third conditional tense is probably the most difficult grammatical structure to explain to ESL students. Nevertheless, I was standing in front of my TESOL classmates, pretend teaching the structure, which is an if-then statement for something that didn't happen. As an example:
"If I had won the lottery, then I would have bought a Porsche instead of a Toyota"
And I would have. While the other students were explaining past perfect tenses, or the simple future, I was trying to deconstruct a very difficult verb tense most native English speakers don't even know exists. The reason the form is important is that it's so useful in story telling, explaining hypothetical situations, and injecting humor in one's communication. It also cost me hours in study time trying to word my lesson. So why did I chose it? The first is that, as a dilettante, I studied the (life) lessons of one English Teacher X, who lamented the student who believes he's a grammarian and tries to take over a classroom. The means you will need to explain arcane English rules, no matter what the level. If I could properly explain this structure to my classmates, then I could explain any rule to any class. I didn't want to get caught off guard. Second, I'm a show off. The looks of puzzlement on everyone's faces were priceless. By choosing the hardest thing I could find, I tested myself, and the positive feedback I received gave a huge boost of confidence.
I thought about all this while in the depths of my ennui. wondering how, exactly, I was to "take action." The only thing I could think of was to start something, anything, no matter how small or the odds of success. I needed to get over the fear of failure, just as I had done with the TESOL program, which almost gave me a nervous breakdown - twice. I just didn't know what that would be. I found the answer sitting at my desk with my Kindle (during my lunch hour - Scout's honor!), reading from Green Wizardry by John Michael Greer. It's an excellent starting point for someone looking to be more independent of our petroleum-based system, kind of a "Surviving Peak Oil for Dummies," but well written, and much more holistic and philosophical than the average primer tome. The best part of the book is that anything proscribed is something the author has already done, either presently or in the 70's, when the appropriate tech movement was at it's peak. In one section, he was explaining that some staple crops aren't grown from seeds like corn or strawberries, but from root pieces, such as tuber crops. This triggered a thought, and I finally got around to using the Mother Earth News archive parked in my USB port. I'm not a fan of regular potatoes, but I love sweet potatoes. The process for growing a tuber is simple: cut one in half, suspend the cut end in water with toothpicks on a jar, and eyes will develop over two or three weeks; when these shoots are past a certain length, put them in soil and water your new planting.
Armed with enough information to start, on the way home I drove to Mrs. Green's grocery to buy two medium organic sweet potatoes, one for dinner, and one for my experiment. As per my research, going organic produce was needed because sweet potatoes are often chemically treated so they won't form eyes. Of course I forgot to get toothpicks, and I had none at my place. I snipped the heads off wooden matches, normally used to light my stove when it's uncooperative, and of course cigars, along with the scented candles needed to mask said tobacco products. The two halves are in water right now, sitting on the windowsill, getting warmth from the radiator below and the afternoon sun.
The final reason I chose the conditional tense is the same reason I chose sweet potatoes: I'm a glutton for punishment. Of all the things I could have chosen to teach or grow, I chose the two hardest things I could find. Yams are a Southern crop, needing both sandy soil and many long hot days to thrive. I have answer for that requirement, but as I mentioned above, the results are secondary to the process of getting over my fear of failure and paralysis. On the other hand, eating homegrown sweet potato pie (made with Stevia, 'natch) at Thanksgiving would be kind of cool. I'm also inspired to take other steps to learn small scale intensive gardening, to the extent my patio allows. Now I need to search my archive for window box plants that don't need too much sun. Let's get to work.
The third conditional tense is probably the most difficult grammatical structure to explain to ESL students. Nevertheless, I was standing in front of my TESOL classmates, pretend teaching the structure, which is an if-then statement for something that didn't happen. As an example:
"If I had won the lottery, then I would have bought a Porsche instead of a Toyota"
And I would have. While the other students were explaining past perfect tenses, or the simple future, I was trying to deconstruct a very difficult verb tense most native English speakers don't even know exists. The reason the form is important is that it's so useful in story telling, explaining hypothetical situations, and injecting humor in one's communication. It also cost me hours in study time trying to word my lesson. So why did I chose it? The first is that, as a dilettante, I studied the (life) lessons of one English Teacher X, who lamented the student who believes he's a grammarian and tries to take over a classroom. The means you will need to explain arcane English rules, no matter what the level. If I could properly explain this structure to my classmates, then I could explain any rule to any class. I didn't want to get caught off guard. Second, I'm a show off. The looks of puzzlement on everyone's faces were priceless. By choosing the hardest thing I could find, I tested myself, and the positive feedback I received gave a huge boost of confidence.
I thought about all this while in the depths of my ennui. wondering how, exactly, I was to "take action." The only thing I could think of was to start something, anything, no matter how small or the odds of success. I needed to get over the fear of failure, just as I had done with the TESOL program, which almost gave me a nervous breakdown - twice. I just didn't know what that would be. I found the answer sitting at my desk with my Kindle (during my lunch hour - Scout's honor!), reading from Green Wizardry by John Michael Greer. It's an excellent starting point for someone looking to be more independent of our petroleum-based system, kind of a "Surviving Peak Oil for Dummies," but well written, and much more holistic and philosophical than the average primer tome. The best part of the book is that anything proscribed is something the author has already done, either presently or in the 70's, when the appropriate tech movement was at it's peak. In one section, he was explaining that some staple crops aren't grown from seeds like corn or strawberries, but from root pieces, such as tuber crops. This triggered a thought, and I finally got around to using the Mother Earth News archive parked in my USB port. I'm not a fan of regular potatoes, but I love sweet potatoes. The process for growing a tuber is simple: cut one in half, suspend the cut end in water with toothpicks on a jar, and eyes will develop over two or three weeks; when these shoots are past a certain length, put them in soil and water your new planting.
Armed with enough information to start, on the way home I drove to Mrs. Green's grocery to buy two medium organic sweet potatoes, one for dinner, and one for my experiment. As per my research, going organic produce was needed because sweet potatoes are often chemically treated so they won't form eyes. Of course I forgot to get toothpicks, and I had none at my place. I snipped the heads off wooden matches, normally used to light my stove when it's uncooperative, and of course cigars, along with the scented candles needed to mask said tobacco products. The two halves are in water right now, sitting on the windowsill, getting warmth from the radiator below and the afternoon sun.
The final reason I chose the conditional tense is the same reason I chose sweet potatoes: I'm a glutton for punishment. Of all the things I could have chosen to teach or grow, I chose the two hardest things I could find. Yams are a Southern crop, needing both sandy soil and many long hot days to thrive. I have answer for that requirement, but as I mentioned above, the results are secondary to the process of getting over my fear of failure and paralysis. On the other hand, eating homegrown sweet potato pie (made with Stevia, 'natch) at Thanksgiving would be kind of cool. I'm also inspired to take other steps to learn small scale intensive gardening, to the extent my patio allows. Now I need to search my archive for window box plants that don't need too much sun. Let's get to work.
