dinner with the students

THIS IS DUFFY WRITING, NOT KATE

well, ok, not a real dinner. you know, the kind with food, and at a restaurant, but the kind that students pretend to have in their oral english class. the kind with plastic cups and bowls and disposable chopsticks with paper fork, spoon and knife heads taped on them. and in one group's case, the kind of dinner that involves a large bottle of hennessey.

last week, after explaining the finer points of eating in america, i assigned my students to write and perform a skit about eating at an american restaurant. after giving them vocabulary words such as "valet" and "dessert cart", and explaining etiquette such as standing when a lady leaves the table, i gave the students a week to write a performance. i got better results than i could have ever imagined.

the rules were simple: one person must be a waiter, a chef, a hostess and at least one boy (since some groups were all girls, this turned out to be very interesting). other than this, the students could rearrange the classroom and write the skit however they wanted. here are some of the most memorable results:

-the first group had a party of four all arrive in a fake car, with all of them jogging in place around the edge of the room. the car was "driven" by a boy holding a bright red trash can lid as a steering wheel. upon arrival, he tossed the lid to the valet like a frisbee, along with his keys.

-all nice chinese restaurants have between 2 and 10 people who stand by the door, and when you enter who bow and say in unison: "Welcome to our restaurant!" the students' fake restaurants were no exception. what was interesting is that one group had their hostesses say "welcome to our seafood restaurant", and then had customers order steak, peking duck, and mutton.

-in keeping with the stereotype of chinese restaurants in america being order by number, whenever a customer would order steak or mutton, the waiter would ask "what number would you like?" this was usually followed by "6 or 7". i was never able to figure out what this meant, but it was included in most presentations.

-one group had actually brought a bottle of whiskey so that their presentation would have more realism. given the amount of drinking that takes place at many chinese meals, it shouldn't have been that surprising.

-by far the most interesting part of the presentations was watching the students hold the chairs for the girls. chinese boys are usually very doting on their girlfriends, but for the presentations they had the hardest time remembering to help the girls into their chairs. there was plenty of running back and forth around the tables, and in one case a boy actually sat down first, remembered that he should help his "date", and promptly pushed her chair out from under the table with his foot. the rest of the class found this hysterical.

-the best script came from a group that included a side plot in their skit about a boy and girl on a date. the boy was rude through dinner, and got the busboy fired for spilling something. after dinner the girl said she was tired, and that the boy did not need to give her a ride home. the recently fired busboy left the restaurant at the same time, and offered to buy the girl a drink, which she accpted and they both pretended to hop onto a moped and drive off into the night together.

i know it doesn't seem like much to get excited about, but after so many weeks of students just going through the motions, it was nice to see them put some work into something and actually have it come out well.