A Penguin’s Name

(In which my answer will always be “No”.)

***

I had three group classes over the phone. Yeah, you heard, er, read, that right. It’s a group class. I had two students for thirty minutes and they listen to me through speaker phone. The good thing is, they are with another teacher to help me regarding translation. At first I thought that was a tough job but as we finish each book, everything becomes easier. So today, in one of my group classes, we are on a new book. It’s about a penguin who likes to play in the snow.

Yeah. From the looks of this page, you might have sensed that it’s a beginner class. A please-say-that-in-complete-sentences and please-repeat-after-me kind of class.

And this is how we conduct the class: you ask literal questions. Then inferential and then application questions for both the text and the picture.

So what are the literal questions that I made?

1. What is the color of Pookie?
2. What is the size of Pookie?
3. What does Pookie wear?
4. What does Pookie like?

Okay. I didn’t mention the name in all of the questions. I just wrote it here for entertainment purposes, hoping that you were entertained. Anyway, I swear I tried my best not to laugh when I was asking these questions. Well, that’s what the mute button is for. Maybe it’s just me but it really feels awkward. What makes it more awkward is that it only appears awkward to me and my students don’t know how awkward I feel at that moment. Please do not think ill of me. I'm not really green-minded but it really feels awkward! It really does!

So what’s with the innocent penguin’s name? If you are Filipino, you know what I mean.

Then I asked them, “Do you like Pookie’s name?”

And they both said, “Yes!”

So I asked again. “Would you want to have his name?”

“Yes!”

I remembered when we were being trained on how to teach the new books, the trainer used this story and asked us: “Do you like to be named Pookie?”

And we roared, “No!”