Peachy keen

I had my speech class today. The current class is composed of four students, all of whom have no fear about public speaking, and in fact are total hams. The problem is, they have been waffling about what to write for their speeches.

Today I did an exercise where they each drew a card with an emotion written on it, then tried to read a nursery rhyme using that emotion. I think my favorite was the student who read "one for the money, two for the show..." and then stopped to comment at length on the accompanying illustration in the book before going back to "three."

At the end of the class, they asked if it was possible to do some kind of play rather than speeches. Since the class is really just an excuse to give them English practice, I said sure. After a bit of discussion about the options, they decided to do an English version of the traditional Japanese story "Momotarou" (Peach Boy)...with a twist at the end. They then began assigning parts, some having to play multiple roles. After shuffling the parts around, they finally decided...and gave me the title role. (They didn't even notice they had done so, because they were shuffling parts based on which of them would make the best matched couples, and I got the part left over.)

We'll see if they can bang this into shape or if they change their minds again...