Random Quote
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
This may be the most interesting blog theme I've ever seen. http://eflgeek.com/index.php Definitely in my top 5 at least.
---- Steve Dembo
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, two of whom are absent.
---- Robert Copeland
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation.
---- Author Unknown
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
---- Pablo Picasso
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
---- Malcom Forbes
Lost Pilot
I’ve put together a lesson for my advanced class on the pilot episode of Lost. Actually it’s only the first half of the pilot. The pilot episode is 2 hours, really 90 minutes, and my classes are only 100 minutes long. It will take the whole two hour class just do what I’ve got planned in for the first half of the pilot and even then it will be tight and rushed.
If students want to see the rest, the can buy the DVDs, borrow them from the library, or acquire them some other way. I’ve watched TV/Movies in the past strait through and you always end up with students sleeping in class. Now when I teach using video I regularly stop the video and have discussion time - usually every 10-15 minutes. This way it keeps everyone awake and is really more about language learning as you are checking listening comprehension, idioms, difficult vocabulary and any number of other aspects.
Page six of the handout was originally developed by Gord Sellar who shared it with me via email a couple of months ago. I dropped one section of what he did with his since his focus was different, but kept the majority of it. You will see his name on page six but no link to his blog since he asked the students not be told about his blog.
For the record I am aware that the picture I chose on page six is from season three, I used it anyhow because I think it is a great image. I hope you find this handout useful. If you would like to make changes let me know and I can email you the original file in MSpublisher format.





Katie wrote 53 words on Tuesday May 29, 2007 at 02:53 AM
I am so excited to see this. I haven’t even opened your lesson yet, but I started watching Lost just a couple of weeks ago and am hooked. I hope I have a class I can incorporate this into soon! If not, I will watch the pilot again and do the lesson myself.
Sean. wrote 31 words on Tuesday May 29, 2007 at 05:46 AM
Katie,
It’s designed for a fairly advanced class. I’ll also be preparing a Prison Break lesson sometime over the summer as well in the same style and for the same level.