Liebe

As many people who read Smith’s soapbox are aware here at Smith’s Hirakata, Adrian likes ALL of his students to do homework, and I’ve learned while working here how important giving homework is. This week I had the pleasure of teaching one our man-to-man students, and for her weekly homework she is asked to write a one day diary, as well as create two original sentences using the Smith’s “One Point Grammar” sentences. She seemed more excited than usual when she told me that she was ready to read her diary, and said with a big smile…“Today’s diary is from Liebe to you” (Liebe is her cat.) So, basically she said her cat had written a diary addressing me. I laughed and thought, “wow, this is really cool idea”.  Now you may be thinking, why would she even think to write a diary about her Cat. Well, possibly because I’ve noticed over the past few months that she really enjoys talking about her family, but seems even more excited to talk about her cat “Liebe”, so most weeks I make a point to ask a few questions about her cat, and I’ve also noticed just that alone helps her to talk more easily and freely than when discussing other subjects. Now her level isn’t the highest, and she isn’t the lowest, but what is important to understand is that when she wrote her diary she did so from “her level”. She used simple sentences. She didn’t try to use difficult vocabulary. She just wrote at her level and ability and the end result was a very smooth easy to read diary. I was very impressed and told her how great I thought her writing was. I even went in the other room to grab Adrian so that she could read it to him. Adrian liked it so much that next week he decided to post it along with this story.

I hope you all like it as much as we did.

Jerry

“Hi, Jerry! It’s me, Liebe. How do you do? How are you? Me? I’m bored and lonely because when Kazuko goes to Moriguchi I have to stay at home alone so I poop in the corridor and outside of the litter box often. When Kazuko is home I’m happy I like to play hide-and-seek but she is poor at looking for me so I always ring a bell to get her attention. I can always find her quickly. I think I want Kazuko to stay home every day. Kazuko says if she stays at home every day we shall starve to death – really?”