My Teaching Photos: Medford, Oregon


Fourth Grade Class at Bellview Elementary

A Field Trip at The Pioneer Cemetery

Laurie and Ingrid at Bellview

At McLoughlin Middle School

Working on Class Projects

Laurie in Bend, Oregon, March 2010

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Started

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I began this blog when I lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I ugently needed to connect wtih the rest of the world and while I'll never regret my decision to go there and teach school, living in Southeast Asia severely tested me. I didn't have Facebook because it was banned and I didn't have television. But I did have a speedy internet connection. Fortunately, the school I worked for had a first-class IT department, hence the reliable WiFi. When I first arrived in District 11 and realized how far off the beaten track I was, my computer filled hours of downtime. And because the immediate vicinity offered little else in the way of entertainment, I created a blog. There wasn't any computer guru around and asking a question was futile without knowing Vietnamese, so I was on my own. I found blogging exasperating and the few pages I posted were the result of an infernal struggle, immersed in tropical heat and ineptitude. I decided it would be really cool to imbed short s...
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¡Adelante! English

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Practical Tips: How are you feeling today?   There are many ways to answer that question as it relates to your current  mood.  For example, you can be happy, sad, worried, and bummed. Standard feeling words such as happy, sad and lonely are easy to remember. But English uses a variety of words that add more ways to express emotion. Such as blue, down, upbeat, bummed out, and wiped out. These last two are collocations, or words that are put together often in 2- or 3-word phrases. See these examples: Feeling Sentence Meaning I’m feeling blue . I’m a little down today.  You look upbeat , did you get good news? I’m bummed ou t because I didn’t get the job. After that 10K run I’m really wiped out .  When you’re sad, not happy. A depressed mood, mentally low. Looking excited and showing positive energy.   Disappointed about something you wanted. Extreme physical tiredness. Now r...
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Mike's New Car (Dubbed)

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Special thanks to Declan Nicholls who dubbed the voices in this Pixar video for the comedy film, Monster's Inc. In this English tip, we will learn about imperatives. Imperatives tell someone what to do. They're often a command given by someone in authority, like the character Mike in this Pixar clip. Mike takes Sulley to see his new car. The car has features (like the automatic seat adjustment) that Sulley experiments with and figures out how to operate. Mike has trouble operating the seat belt, which results in a funny problem. Let's look closely at the dialogue. Imperatives No peeking. This one means Sulley should keep his eyes closed and not look until instructed. Come on. Get in, get in. Say "come on" when you want someone to follow your lead. Follow this by telling what to do next. The next example combines a question with an imperative for stronger emphasis when Mike says: Will you cut it out?! Mike is actually demanding that Sul...
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