varium et mutabile semper femina. Indeed, but I'm willing to try to understand women of any nationality. :)

Which brings me to a language activity of a few days ago with a group of second-year uni students. The activity was based on a role-play and simulation, "The X Y Society" from Fredericke Klippel's Keep Talking: Communicative Fluency activities for Language Teaching, and we had a lot of fun.

Spread over two double-lessons during one week, the first session was in the form of a radio programme with the rest of the class, rather than passive observers waiting their turn, acting as phone-in callers to the programme. The second session, based on some refinement of the original concepts and done for homework, was set in a TV studio with a live audience, and those waiting for their call to present, asking questions of the group. Some of the students even mimicked various English accents as they were calling in from several countries. This was totally unexpected and very funny.

One of the groups created a "Big Uncle" society, a wordplay on the 'Big Auntie' in Chinese culture. The objectives for the society and the roles of the 'officers' were explained by the group's use of PowerPoint. I had limited the number of slides that could be used to a maximum four slides and a minimum of text with a focus on using a graphic to help explain the point. This society/organisation aimed to give men a feeling for what it would be like to be a woman - having babies, menstruation and pre-menstrual tension among other things. The ensuing "studio" debate was entertaining and I was very pleased that this group had considered the lexis of their topic in their preparation and used the words appropriately.

Another group established a company that would specialise in advising couples. There were two arms of the company: one would deal with keeping couples together, the other with showing the ways of breaking-up a relationship. They also covered clothing and cosmetics.

It goes to show that Chinese students, if provided with a secure and supportive teaching environment, can be both innovative and imaginative.