Idea: Cartoon Strip - The Wheels of Life

Dear ETs,

From the moment we are born till our death, we seem to be transported on wheels.

The comic strip below is a humourous look at the various forms of transport that we get ourselves into at different ages of our life.

Some ideas I had was a discussion on various modes of transport, life and death, stages of a person's life and why do people choose different transportation at different stages of life.

Students can contruct sentences with structures such as "When I was _____ years old, I rode/drove (on) a _________ ." or "When I am _____ (age), I will ride/drive _____________ (transport)."

As a writing exercise, students can describe the various stages of life and what they are able to do.

This picture series can be cut up and students rearrange the pictures in the correct order. It will be a great warmer or enrichment activity.

What are some other ideas that we could do from this comic strip?

Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Rodney Tan Chai Whatt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Humour: Lexophile

Dear All,

Enjoy this play with words!

Rodney Tan

P.S. Can you create or think of any other sentences.
---------------------------------------------------

Lexophiles

        1.   A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

        2.   A will is a dead giveaway.

        3.   Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

        4.   A backward poet writes inverse.

        5.   A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

        6.   When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

        7.   The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully   recovered.

        8.   You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

        9.   He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

        10. A calendar's days are numbered.

        11. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

        12. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

        13. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

        14. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

        15. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.

        16. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

        17. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

        18. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

        19. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

        20. Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet.

        21. The roundest knight at king Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his   

              size from too much pi.

        22. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical  

              Aleutian.

        23. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

        24. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of  

             math disruption.

        25. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

        26. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

        27 Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

        28. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

        29. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

        30. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

        31. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

        32. A small boy swallowed some coins and went to the hospital.  When his mother  

              telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

        33. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

        34. Don't join dangerous cults: practice safe sects.

Video: Words As Image

Dear All,

The video below is just a brilliant representation of a creative concept.

Its main premise is words can be treated as images.

A book by the same title is out in the market.

Enjoy!


Rodney Tan Chai Whatt

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Fun Poem: English is a Stupid Language

ENGLISH IS A STUPID LANGUAGE



Lets face it

English is a stupid language.

There is no egg in the eggplant;

No ham in the hamburger

And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.

And while no one knows what is in a hot dog,

you can be pretty sure it isn't canine.

English muffins were not invented in England;

French fries were not invented in France.



We sometimes take English for granted.

But if we examine its paradoxes we find that

Quicksand takes you down slowly.

Boxing rings are square.

And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads,

which aren't sweet, are meat.



If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.

If the plural of tooth is teeth,

One goose, two geese.

So one moose, two meese?

Is cheese the plural of choose?

One mouse, two mice; one louse, two lice,

One house, two hice?

Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth

If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught,

Or the grocer groce, or hammers ham?



If a vegetarian eats vegetables,

What the heck does a humanitarian eat!?

Why do people recite at a play,

Yet play at a recital?

Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

Ship by truck, and send cargo by ship...?

Have feet that smell and noses than run?

How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day

And as cold as hell on another



You have to marvel at the unique lunacy

Of a language where a house can burn up as

It burns down,

And in which you fill in a form

By filling it out

And a bell is only heard once it goes!

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,

while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?



English was invented by people, not computers

And it reflects the creativity of the human race

(Which of course isn't a race at all)

That is why

You get in and out of a car, and on and off a bus.

When the stars are out they are visible

But when the lights are out they are invisible.

And why it is that when I wind up my watch

It starts,

But when I wind up this poem,

It ends.

Resource: The Best Sites for Learning About Planets and Space

Since returning from the Honeywell NASA Educators @ Space Camp recently, I've been very interested in materials that will help me use Space Science and Technology texts and exercies as a resource to teach English.

I've found an interesting site. Below is the link to a well-known ELT teacher blogger: Larry Ferlazzo's blog where he lists down useful websites to obtain such materials.

Have fun exploring and adapting the materials for your classroom!

Rodney Tan
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Larry Ferlazzo has added some historic NASA photos to his excellent page, The Best Sites for Learning About Planets and Space.

Source: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/04/03/the-best-sites-for-learning-about-planets-space/

Vocabulary Fun : MENSA Invitational

MENSA INVITATIONAL



The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.


Here are some of the winners:

Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.


Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future


Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.


Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.


Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.



The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.


3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.


4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

6. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

7. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.


8. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.


9. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

10. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

11. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.


12. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

13. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

Poem: Views On Aging

A poem on aging can be used as an interesting discussion on growing older and the aged. The vocabulary used in describing turing into a certain age is particularly relevant and gives variety to the phrases used.

Anyway, do enjoy the poem as much as I had.

------------------------------------------
George Carlin's Views on Aging

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids?
If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!

And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 . ... and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.

And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92." Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!