Tangled Tales

Today I had to choose four of my students to come down and talk with a very strange lady training us on how to expand our students' oral language.

First of all, yes, apparently some of us need to learn how to *talk* to kids. Really. Amazed me too.

Second of all, my kids are five. Maybe six. There were 10 teachers watching and this very strange lady talking to them (did I mention she's a bit strange?).

So anyway, she told me to get four monolingual English speakers that have oral language issues. I laughed. If she wanted four monolingual English speakers, she'd have to settle for whoever I brought down, as I only really have four in my classroom. Total.

As she was talking to the kids about "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" she realized that the book she chose did not really lend itself to much conversation. That book has its purposes, and creating conversation about events and meaning are not one of them. So, after telling a very unfunny story about a cat sitting on her bed (which she evidently thought was hilarious) she asked one of my students to tell a story about a dog. The one boy in the group started a wonderful story, and it went a little something like this.

"Once upon a time there was a dog."

(lady stares at him and then asked "what was the dog doing?")

"Well, the dog went on a walk. To downtown."

(At this point I'm thinking the kid is a rockstar, because this is going to be one good story and blow this lady out of the water. I must admit I started to beam with pride. The lady asks "wow! what did he do downtown?")

"Someone killed him. The end."

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hmmmmmmmm.

And there you have it.

Needless to say, she did not ask any of my other kids to tell a story.

The end.