why playing M.A.S.H. is the best thing ever

ok, so after my next two lessons it's vacation time! And after two weeks off I teach for two more weeks and then that's it! The lessons for the last two weeks look like this: candy+movie+party+nice speech about class+happy dance. Which is all fine and good, but I have NO ideas left for lessons. So this week I planned two lessons and then adapted them to an appropriate level and used them for every group. The older students got to find out if they would be a democrat or republican (and I gave a talk on the political system in the States) and then they played M.A.S.H.. The younger kids played M.A.S.H. and then wrote a story about their future selves.

For those of you who don't know or remember this is how the game goes:

M(ansion) A(partment) S(hack) H(ouse)

_ _ _ _ <-------- put numbers here

Spouse <------ write people you would like to marry here (famous or otherwise)

-

-

-

-

City <------------ places you want to live go here

-

-

-
-

Job <----------------- jobs you want to have go here

-

-

-

-

Car <------------------ cars you want to drive here

-

-

-

-

Salary <----------------- the amount of money you want to make

-

-

-

-

Wedding Dress/Tuxedo <------------- write colors here

-

-

-

-

Except I play my version a bit meanly. See, I let each person fill out two blanks in each heading, then I make them trade their papers with someone else and I encourage them to write terrible things. Like garbage collector and a salary of $1 with a bright pink wedding dress. Etc. And then, once it's all filled in one person makes tally marks until the other says stop. Then using that number you count the topics, starting with the M., once you reach your number, you cross off that item. And you keep counting until you have only 1 thing left in each category. And that's your future! I've had kids marrying George W. Bush employeed as cleaning ladies, making 1,000,000 a year while driving roller blades and living in apartments. And kids marrying Julia Roberts, having 70 children, living in a shack, working as designers making $1 and driving a Porshe. It's pretty awesome.

The best thing is, it's one of those lessons where they can't wait to read me their stories and tell about their "future" - which of course means a quick review of using "will" with verbs. Pretty awesome. But today had to be the best -students stayed after to finish their sheets and then in the hallway were explaining it to their friends and saying how much fun it was! Makes you feel pretty good about yourself. And to think - they were practicing using the future tense, saying numbers, learning about different jobs all while having a great time. M.A.S.H. is awesome!

(also, I keep getting new futures every class. Today I married Johnny Depp, had 12 kids, made 1,000,000 a year, drove a Tank, lived in a mansion, wore a red wedding dress and lived in Hawaii where I worked part time as a writer. Best future ever! except for the 12 kids part)