eAfter our running dictation about salmon and the Wye last week, I thought we would benefit from a visit to the local museum to have a look at the lave nets that are used in this area to catch salmon.
But first, a reminder about puns. Schemata activated by writing the key words ‘ocean’, ‘wave’, ‘shore’, ‘beach’ and ‘water’ on the board (as well as ‘salmon’ and ‘Wye’, later). ‘Shore’ was new last week. And then I elicited homonyms - ‘wave’ was tricky, but they knew that ‘beach’ sounded like ‘bitch’! Then I showed them a printout of a supposed text message conversation and asked them to read it out loud to see if they found it funny - which they did, eventually!
This was also a good exercise for noting the style of writing used in text messages - for instance, ‘lol’, the lack of punctuation and abbreviation such as ‘doin’.
Next, to get everyone in the mood, a definition of the word ‘museum’ and a short paired discussion about favourite museums and their earliest memory of going to one.
I explained we would be looking at a particular exhibit at the museum and I asked them to write a short description of it for English students who were at a lower level, and then to look around the museum and find 3 exhibits they would include if it were their museum (thanks to the very useful ESOL handouts on the Natural History Museum’s web site).
So, a nice stroll down to the museum, identifying a stone seat and nettles along the way. The custodian at the museum welcomed them but I think spoke so fast they didn’t catch what she said. They did their best with the exhibit description but there were too many of them to be able to read it at once, so some of them went off to have a look around the rest of it. I wandered between the groups and pointed out things they had perhaps missed (the Marcel wave machine is, for me, a fascinating exhibit!).
All in all, I think they probably enjoyed the visit, but it’s also fair to say they probably won’t go again under their own steam (only one had already been, but many years previously). Does this suggest the museum is a rather exclusive place??