The Sleepy Tiger - ESL Flashcard Game

The Sleepy Tiger

Scatter props or flashcards nearby. Pretend to sleep. Coteacher whispers the name of an item and chooses 3-4 students to quietly retrieve the correct item and give it to them. If students are too loud, then the sleepy tiger wakes up and will chase them to their seats.

*Explain to the rest of the class that they must softly sing the tiger to sleep.

To make this more playful and fun, you can pretend to sleep restlessly as students get closer. E.g. grunt, raise your head, and scratch your ear, then stretch, yawn, and go back to sleep. During little sleep disturbances, they will want to be extra quiet and stay still. You could even open your eyes, rub them, and look around the room a little bit, but not directly at the students.

Students who are not actively participating should quietly chant a sentence pattern with the word. E.g. "Get the rainbow, get the rainbow." (Now they're reciting a sentence pattern instead of just one word.) The sentence pattern can be changed. "Bring Lulu the rainbow" "I will get the rainbow" "Quietly get the rainbow." - This game can be used to teach a variety of sentence patterns, however do take care to teach the meaning of new sentences and words instead of having the students blindly reciting them.

Once a student grabs the correct card, chase everybody back to their seats. Take the card, and ask, "What is this?" - Everybody should answer. If someone is not participating, single them out until they answer, "It's a rainbow." Singling students out for participation after each phase of a game will teach them that the fun stops if you don't participate, and everybody sees it's your fault. Do this only as needed, and apply to other games until the desired amount of participation and compliance is reached.

Predator puppets are good for this game. The puppet can be what is sleeping. This allows the teacher to talk to the students and to do the game without a coteacher.

Game modifications:

Sly Fox Style: If the tiger opens its eyes, you must stand still. If you move, the teacher calls your name and you must go back to your seat or the start line. This allows the tiger to suddenly wake up, look about, etc. This is more playful and active. Students will try to run. This modification works well 'only jumping is allowed'.

The Tiger is Listening: If the tiger hears you giggle, you must go back to the start line. Make this playful, fun, and challenging by making funny faces, noises, and behaviors.

Freeze Tag: If you catch a student, then they are frozen and cannot move. They can be rescued by having another student touch them. The sleepy tiger will guard their treasure, and frozen students are part of that treasure. Perhaps a frozen student needs to be touched with the chosen flash card.

Switch roles: If a student is caught, they become the next tiger. The teacher can help them to choose a word for the next round of the game. Catch with touches, not by grabbing. Grabby teachers leads to grabby students and you don't want them grabbing each other because they will get rough and will not let go to break contact. This leads to escalation and emotional rivalries.

Get your backpack: If you see that there's only a few minutes of class time remaining, you can put all of the student backpacks around you, and challenge them to get your backpack and return to their seats. This works well with a tiger that is awake, but is also very slow when chasing. While you are chasing one student, the other students will be in a hurry to get their backpacks and return to their seats for safety. They should chant something like, "Get my backpack!" "I can get my backpack." "Quietly get your backpacks." Alternatively to sitting, you can have them line up at the coteacher.

Random ESL Teaching Tips 001

Songs used to start class should involve choreography instead of being sang without movement. This improves focus and you'll easily tell if a student isn't participating. It's ok to stop a song to address a particular student who isn't participating. The class will learn that they'll get bored and have to repeat if someone isn't participating. This puts pressure on that individual.

Want a song to be fun? Do it super fast, and then try slow too.

If a song doesn't have choreography, consider adding it.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has the same melody as the ABC song. This may make it easier to learn and perform. This may be good for a school play or performance.

The game 'Duck, Duck, Goose, Goose' can be played with the words quiet and loud. You can do other word pairs as well, e.g. big/small, slow/fast. Have everybody chant the first word together, and then shout the last one together, but their voices don't have to be in unison.

Chinese Students Failing to be Creative

A reddit post:





My reply:



Yet, everybody says that the American system of education is brain washing. Considering that students are terrified of being in an individual... who's brainwashing now?

It's not just about there only being one correct answer, it's about being part of a group and giving the groupthink answer instead of being an individual.

They literally do not want to be an individual or be seen as one, they're terrified of it. They become dependent upon their parents and peers for thinking.

This is why people in their 40s still call mom to make life decisions such as leaving an employer, finding a boyfriend, buying a home or a car. Some even have their parents manage all of their finances for them.

So they don't just need training in creativity, but evaluation of situations for decision making, actual decision making, acting as an individual instead of acting as a group, etc.

Creativity is a big part of it, but there's a reason that the Borg in StarTrek don't have art or poetry and would struggle to create that if separated from their collective. They would also struggle to appreciate it.

And now it gets personal, if you show art, poetry, expressionism, creative works to a Chinese person... they can't appreciate it and might think something is wrong with you like you're retarded and overly emotional. China has Chinese art, which... you guessed it, all looks the same. Why do Chinese cultural and traditional art all look the same? It's more than just because "This is our art style." - Why do ALL of the artists, especially the historic ones, ALL have the same style, the same rules, the same product? Why didn't any of the Chinese artists do something unique?

Now compare that to Western art. Our art is all OVER the place. We did all kinds of crazy stuff, and no two artists are alike. But in China, all artists were alike, and many of them strive to BE alike. In fact, they'll spend years of their life trying to master the ability to replicate the works of other masters... and if they do something unique, then that's fucking reject trash to them. They certainly won't be able to sell it, will they?

This is changing, this is changing really fast. But still... look how many people decide to be an artist, and then never strive to do anything unique?

The entire culture is mindfucked in exactly this way. So you as a teacher ask your students for individual answers, thoughts, feelings. You tell them to say or do something DIFFERENT instead of asking everybody to do the same thing. They've never dealt with that before.

It didn't happen at home. It didn't happen at school. It didn't even happen during their free time. That's where you get the situations of a white guy saying, "Do something different, anything is good." and the student looses it, refusing to do anything at all. Because anything would be wrong, and anything is bad. In Chinese culture, you follow and you copy. In Chinese history, bad things happen to people who don't.

Friends are the best treasure

Friends are the most important thing whether you're a jail house bird, or a Billionaire. When you remember your best friends, you don't remember caring about how tall they were,
how beautiful, or what hobbies were in common. You remember the moments that made you think, smile, and feel happy.

What doesn't matter:

• Education
• Height
• Beauty
• Income level
• Ethnicity

Me:Art

When I see an art piece, I don't just look at it, feeling nothing. I don't glance at it and pass it by. I walk up to it and stop... I experience it. I put myself inside of the art and in that moment, I feel it inside of me. So I basically want to steal fancy art and have sex with it. Join me some time, let's accost some art!

I had babies!

8 baby birds came in to my life. My father commented that he'd heard about a lady that made really good money by releasing white homing pigeons at weddings. He was ok with the idea of me cordoning off a quarter of his prize winning back yard, to put up an ugly bird coop. So I did! He never let us have pets. Years of being a father (and putting up with our shit) had softened him.

They loved to fly circles around the house, and I began training within six months.

I wanted my brother to see them.

Unfortunately, he died and came home as ashes in a box. The first time I ever did a release for an event was for his funeral. I like to think that he saw them then.

A friend made fun of me, "It looks like a GUY lives here!" So the next time she visited, I told her that I heard a strange noise coming from my window. tap tap tap. When I opened a window, there was this bird staring me down and looking angry. He said, "I got my nest right outside your window and yesterday this place was a mess. My wife left me... I think that's YOUR fault!"

SO I cleaned my room right away, and his wife came back. He was so happy that he left me a present, go open the window... So after hearing my crazy story, she opens the window. It's a chocolate bar, but it's been frozen. I say, "Oh my god, it's frozen, there's only ONE thing to do, GIVE me the candy!" - And I take out a hammer and gleefully pulverize it right in front of her.

Finally, I take the chocolate devastation and say, "Now follow me!" - we walked to a nearby restaurant that serves ice cream. Yup, we dusted the ice cream with frozen chocolate from the birdman. The moral of the story? - Have fun, be creative. I made someone smile and laugh so hard they were snorting their snot.. all for a few bucks. In life, you're going to meet many people that might give you a chocolate bar. Some might even give you the expensive chocolate. But only a few friends will give you awesome memories. That's going the extra smile!