Well, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later:
Tonight, George Bailey, Mary Hatch, and the rest of the 1928 graduating class at Bedford Falls High School did the Charleston right into the gym swimming pool, in my EFL class.
When I came to Russia, I hoped that I would eventually have a chance to bring the big Charleston contest back into my classroom. And that opportunity finally came today, in an Intermediate class I teach at a company that manufactures automotive parts.
The last time I used the Charleston contest scene, I really had done it for no real purpose than my own desire to show video in class. I had learned about the video dictation technique (briefly, in a video dictation, half the class sees the video and describes it to the other half, who cannot see) in CELTA training and wanted a chance to try it out. But I had not really thought through what I could use it for, and the lesson that came out if it was highly botched.
Tonight's replay was totally different--probably a sign that my teaching skills are improving. I chose to use the scene with a class that I know has trouble figuring out when and how to use the past simple (I went), the past continuous (I was going), and the past perfect (I had gone). Giving it some thought this weekend, I decided the best way to clear up this confusing was with a bit of video. And so I started planning a way to exploit It's a Wonderful Life to clarify distinctions among these verb tenses.
This time around, I prepared slips of paper with everything that happens in the four minutes of video I showed and had my student (only one actually showed up tonight) put them in the proper order. Then I asked questions geared to getting him to understand a need for the past continuous or past perfect, as required.
All in all, I was quite satisifed with how this lesson progressed tonight. And this despite a couple of embarassing technical glitches: at one point, my laptop's cord came unplugged, and at another, my video player froze, requiring me to reboot the computer. At least my student is a good-natured guy who took it in stride. While I fiddled with my laptop, I had him chat with me about his work, which requires him to go on weekly business trips to Rostov-on-Don, Nizhnii Novgorod, and various other cities in Russia.
But I think this lesson really helped him. He said he will be doing some review of these tenses on his own, but I had the satisfying feeling, walking home tonight, that I had actually accomplished something. There is no feeling like it in the world.
20 October 2008
11 October 2008
Time, Tide, and Trolley Wait for Every Man
If I saw Meet Me in St. Louis once as a child, I must have seen it a thousand times. My favorite scene--probably everyone's--is the one of Judy Garland singing her heart out on the trolley. I think that scene is permanently etched on my brain, beyond forgetting, like the look of Park Slope. The trolley itself is a perfect picture of nostalgia and whimsy, the kind of thing only Hollywood could produce. The people on it seem honestly to believe there is no better mode of travel.
I think about this scene every so often as I move about in Moscow. Having already described the wonders of the Moscow Metro, I won't bother to comment on it. Rather, I will confine myself in this post to describing the other forms of transit available in Moscow: the marshutka, the trolley, and the trolleybus, and the bus. These ways of getting about are indespensible to the city, yet differ widely in the level of comfort and convenience they offer travellers.
First, the marshutka. A marshutka is a vehicle somewhat larger than an American cargo van. It seats somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen passengers and usually makes relatively short runs. Recently, I discovered that a marshutka route exists that will take from practically in front of my building to the nearest Metro station--a real boon in the mornings, since it spares me the 15 minutes or so I would otherwise have to spend walking to the Metro, and thus enables me to sleep 15 minutes longer. You get into the Metro, pay the driver (or don't--I've sometimes gotten into the Metro only to realize I never paid the marshutka driver), and the marshutka starts moving as soon as the driver deems there to be a sufficient number of passengers--or, in some cases, as soon as another marshutka behind him starts honking its horn loudly enough to goad him into motion. It then rattles along the street, hitting every trolley track hard enough to jolt you close enough to the moon to see Alice Kramden. But at least the run is short, and you soon arrive at wherever you needed the marshutka to take you.
After the marshutka, the form of surface transit I use the most is probably the trolley or the trolleybus (a trolleybus is a trolley without any actual tracks--it gets its power from an overhead wire but has regular rubber wheels and can weave in traffic a bit more). In Moscow, neither of these forms of transit is very comfortable; indeed, I find it hard to imagine any means of travelling more different from the trolley Judy Garland took to the Fair Grounds.
You get onto the trolley or trolleybus after shoving your way through a tremendous crowd. Trolleys and trolleybuses require a different kind of ticket from the one used on the Metro, which I am often forced to purchase from the driver (there are places to purchase a ticket in advance, but there never seems to be one near or open when I need to get on a trolley or trolleybus). Moreover, trolleys and trolleybuses are invariably overcrowded.
Between the trolley and the trolleybus, I have a decided preference for the latter. Like many Americans, I came to Russia with a whistful and nostalgic view of trolleys. But after riding on them in Moscow, I have come to detest them. The main reason for my newfound hatred of trolleys is that, due to some sort of traffic accident ahead of them, they often get quite literally stuck in their tracks. I see with some regularity five or six trolleys lined up behind an auto accident, completely unable to move because the cars involved in the accident cannot be moved until the police have arrived and taken pictures. Just before Judy Garland got on the trolley, someone told her that time, tide, and trolley wait for no man; in Moscow, time and tide have a similar impatience, but the trolley waits for every man.
I suppose the problem of trolleys stopped dead because of an automobile accident could be solved by having a designated trolley lane in which cars would not be permitted to drive (though this would still cause problems at turns). This is how some light rail systems operate. But I doubt Moscow could ever fully implement such a system, because it would require too many changes to the street.
Another irritating aspect of trolleys and trolleybuses is that it is often necessary to board them in the middle of the street (a major reason, I've since found out, that they were phased out in most American cities by the end of the 1950s). In a few places, this can be a real safety concern, as cars don't necessarily obey laws that prohibit them from driving right in front of a trolley or trolleybus stop. Still another problem is that trolley and trolleybuses stops are not always sufficently clear or noticeable; often, the only indication of a stop is a small sign with a "T" (trolley) or "TB" (trolleybus) market on it, hanging from the trolley's electrical line.
Finally, there's the regular bus, the only form of Moscow surface transit with parallels in American cities. I have little to remark about them; I cannot even say clearly whether busses in Moscow are better or worse than in New York. On the one hand, Moscow busses do not stop every two blocks as New York (especially Manhattan) busses seem to. Nor have I had as many experiences as I had in New York of waiting a half-hour for a bus and then having three of them come at once. On the other hand, the busses in Moscow are every bit as overcrowded as in New York. The worst busses are the ones on the outskirts of Moscow that take people to major shopping centers. But all of them are pretty bad.
Trolleys, trolleybuses, and busses all have a few inconveniences in common. The worst, in my view, is the payment system. As I have noted, it is possible to buy a ticket for all of them from small booths on the streets, but these are neither sufficient in number nor available near many stops. The vehicles themselves all have an annoying turnstile through which you have to put a ticket that can be bought from the driver. But as you attempt to buy this ticket, all of the other passengers (who seem somehow to have a ticket already) shove right into you to pass.
I think about this scene every so often as I move about in Moscow. Having already described the wonders of the Moscow Metro, I won't bother to comment on it. Rather, I will confine myself in this post to describing the other forms of transit available in Moscow: the marshutka, the trolley, and the trolleybus, and the bus. These ways of getting about are indespensible to the city, yet differ widely in the level of comfort and convenience they offer travellers.
First, the marshutka. A marshutka is a vehicle somewhat larger than an American cargo van. It seats somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen passengers and usually makes relatively short runs. Recently, I discovered that a marshutka route exists that will take from practically in front of my building to the nearest Metro station--a real boon in the mornings, since it spares me the 15 minutes or so I would otherwise have to spend walking to the Metro, and thus enables me to sleep 15 minutes longer. You get into the Metro, pay the driver (or don't--I've sometimes gotten into the Metro only to realize I never paid the marshutka driver), and the marshutka starts moving as soon as the driver deems there to be a sufficient number of passengers--or, in some cases, as soon as another marshutka behind him starts honking its horn loudly enough to goad him into motion. It then rattles along the street, hitting every trolley track hard enough to jolt you close enough to the moon to see Alice Kramden. But at least the run is short, and you soon arrive at wherever you needed the marshutka to take you.
After the marshutka, the form of surface transit I use the most is probably the trolley or the trolleybus (a trolleybus is a trolley without any actual tracks--it gets its power from an overhead wire but has regular rubber wheels and can weave in traffic a bit more). In Moscow, neither of these forms of transit is very comfortable; indeed, I find it hard to imagine any means of travelling more different from the trolley Judy Garland took to the Fair Grounds.
You get onto the trolley or trolleybus after shoving your way through a tremendous crowd. Trolleys and trolleybuses require a different kind of ticket from the one used on the Metro, which I am often forced to purchase from the driver (there are places to purchase a ticket in advance, but there never seems to be one near or open when I need to get on a trolley or trolleybus). Moreover, trolleys and trolleybuses are invariably overcrowded.
Between the trolley and the trolleybus, I have a decided preference for the latter. Like many Americans, I came to Russia with a whistful and nostalgic view of trolleys. But after riding on them in Moscow, I have come to detest them. The main reason for my newfound hatred of trolleys is that, due to some sort of traffic accident ahead of them, they often get quite literally stuck in their tracks. I see with some regularity five or six trolleys lined up behind an auto accident, completely unable to move because the cars involved in the accident cannot be moved until the police have arrived and taken pictures. Just before Judy Garland got on the trolley, someone told her that time, tide, and trolley wait for no man; in Moscow, time and tide have a similar impatience, but the trolley waits for every man.
I suppose the problem of trolleys stopped dead because of an automobile accident could be solved by having a designated trolley lane in which cars would not be permitted to drive (though this would still cause problems at turns). This is how some light rail systems operate. But I doubt Moscow could ever fully implement such a system, because it would require too many changes to the street.
Another irritating aspect of trolleys and trolleybuses is that it is often necessary to board them in the middle of the street (a major reason, I've since found out, that they were phased out in most American cities by the end of the 1950s). In a few places, this can be a real safety concern, as cars don't necessarily obey laws that prohibit them from driving right in front of a trolley or trolleybus stop. Still another problem is that trolley and trolleybuses stops are not always sufficently clear or noticeable; often, the only indication of a stop is a small sign with a "T" (trolley) or "TB" (trolleybus) market on it, hanging from the trolley's electrical line.
Finally, there's the regular bus, the only form of Moscow surface transit with parallels in American cities. I have little to remark about them; I cannot even say clearly whether busses in Moscow are better or worse than in New York. On the one hand, Moscow busses do not stop every two blocks as New York (especially Manhattan) busses seem to. Nor have I had as many experiences as I had in New York of waiting a half-hour for a bus and then having three of them come at once. On the other hand, the busses in Moscow are every bit as overcrowded as in New York. The worst busses are the ones on the outskirts of Moscow that take people to major shopping centers. But all of them are pretty bad.
Trolleys, trolleybuses, and busses all have a few inconveniences in common. The worst, in my view, is the payment system. As I have noted, it is possible to buy a ticket for all of them from small booths on the streets, but these are neither sufficient in number nor available near many stops. The vehicles themselves all have an annoying turnstile through which you have to put a ticket that can be bought from the driver. But as you attempt to buy this ticket, all of the other passengers (who seem somehow to have a ticket already) shove right into you to pass.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
