Chick(en) Flicks, The Giving Tree, and a Cold November

Lately, I have been getting the chance to spend some time with my students outside of class and it has been so much fun! Since I have 150 students I have not been sure how to get to know some of them without showing favoritism. Fortunately, those students who want to work on their spoken English or who want to become better friends with me have started to step forward. I had a movie night for one of my classes last weekend and this weekend I am again having students from another class over. Since the majority of my students are girls, there were no boys at my last movie night so we watched "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," the classic Chick Flick. I taught them the phrase, Chick Flick, as they had never heard it before and at the end of the movie one of my students said, "So, please tell me again...Why do you call this a 'Chicken Flick?'" Hehehehe....
My university does not monitor or even wonder what I teach and has provided me very little curriculum so I come up with my own lesson plans each week. Last week I taught my students about Narrative Essays and I read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein to them as an example of a narrative. They loved this story - some of them nearly cried, some of them thought that "the tree was stupid," one of them referred to JC and how He says it's better to give than to receive, and one went very philosophical spouting about how the tree and the boy represent different cultures, races, governments, religions, etc. They are so bright and have great thoughts if encouraged to express them. Overall - a good lesson!
And my last interesting fact for this blog...I found out recently that in Tianjin, and possibly all of Northern China, the heat during winter time is regulated. This means that they turn on the heat (for the whole city) on November 15th and it goes off again on March 15th. Depending on which floor you live on in your building, you may be quite hot or freezing because the heat gets set at one temp - one temp that is not determined by the person who lives there. So...my task for this week is to get some good, warm blankets because it is already in the 50's during the day in Tianjin so I'm anticipating that it could be a cold month until Nov. 15th rolls around. Enjoy your heat!