Random Quote
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
---- Albert Einstein
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?"
---- Kelvin Throop III
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
To have another language is to possess a second soul.
---- Charlemagne
"It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"
---- Sam Levenson
One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.
---- Edward Abbey
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Drink coffee! Do stupid things faster!
---- unknown
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
---- Edward R. Murrow
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
---- Thomas A. Edison
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.
---- Mary Roninette Kowal
Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
---- Terry Pratchett
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
Those who know nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing of their own.”
---- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749 -1832)
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
---- John Ciardi
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
Lost Pilot
I’ve put together a lesson for my advanced class on the pilot episode of Lost. Actually it’s only the first half of the pilot. The pilot episode is 2 hours, really 90 minutes, and my classes are only 100 minutes long. It will take the whole two hour class just do what I’ve got planned in for the first half of the pilot and even then it will be tight and rushed.
If students want to see the rest, the can buy the DVDs, borrow them from the library, or acquire them some other way. I’ve watched TV/Movies in the past strait through and you always end up with students sleeping in class. Now when I teach using video I regularly stop the video and have discussion time - usually every 10-15 minutes. This way it keeps everyone awake and is really more about language learning as you are checking listening comprehension, idioms, difficult vocabulary and any number of other aspects.
Page six of the handout was originally developed by Gord Sellar who shared it with me via email a couple of months ago. I dropped one section of what he did with his since his focus was different, but kept the majority of it. You will see his name on page six but no link to his blog since he asked the students not be told about his blog.
For the record I am aware that the picture I chose on page six is from season three, I used it anyhow because I think it is a great image. I hope you find this handout useful. If you would like to make changes let me know and I can email you the original file in MSpublisher format.





Katie wrote 53 words on Tuesday May 29, 2007 at 03:53 AM
I am so excited to see this. I haven’t even opened your lesson yet, but I started watching Lost just a couple of weeks ago and am hooked. I hope I have a class I can incorporate this into soon! If not, I will watch the pilot again and do the lesson myself.
Sean. wrote 31 words on Tuesday May 29, 2007 at 06:46 AM
Katie,
It’s designed for a fairly advanced class. I’ll also be preparing a Prison Break lesson sometime over the summer as well in the same style and for the same level.