Theresa, a friend of mine who is bravely teaching little kiddlies in Japan, has told me that there are not enough books out for ESOL (English as a Second Language) classes.
And she asked me if I have written any ESOL books.
Well, I must admit I haven’t. I mean, there are only 2000 main words you are supposed to use in those books and a verbose chappy like me would be in real trouble restricting himself to that small a vocabulary!
But, I like a challenge (hey, I’m a friend of yours, for starters), so I decided to try my hand at writing an ESOL book for adult readers.
I think I’ve done a brilliant job. It’s below.
===================
The Kiwi is a bird.
Do not look in a tree for a Kiwi.
The Kiwi cannot fly.
It would fall out of the tree.
Look on the ground for a Kiwi.
Look at night.
The Kiwi only comes out at night.
But it does not go to parties.
It just jives around on the ground.
It eats grubs. It eats bugs. It goes poos a lot.
People from New Zealand are called Kiwis
New Zealanders cannot fly.
New Zealanders fall out of trees.
New Zealanders can be found on the ground at night.
If they are drunk.
New Zealanders do go to parties.
They go to parties after games of rugby.
Where they try to score..
New Zealanders don’t usually eat grubs.
New Zealanders don’t usually eat bugs.
Unless they are playing rugby.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A country boy visits the city
Gidday.
How the bloody hell are ya?
I was over in Wellington in me motor today. Geez, they sure have lots of motors over there. I tried to do a turn in Ngaio into a driveway leading to parking at a cafe thingy only to find some dozy city joker sitting in the driveway (in his motor, of course) looking blankly back at me.
There I was, stuck in the middle of the road like a cast ewe, with these fellas and sheilas in cars all streaming around me as if mechanical chicanes were part and parcel of motoring in the big smoke.
So I went up the road to a servo to turn around and even that wasn't easy because the forecourt was so small thanks to Wellington having damn all flat bits because of them thar hills.
Well, I got a clean turn into the driveway to the park, although the gutter was deeper than the pothole down by Blairlogie Homstead and knocked all the sheep shit off the mudflaps. You should have seen the number of cars in the carpark. There were more there than at a Wainuioru School petday.
But I slid me motor into a vacant space - the lady in the car next to me gave me this weird look when she straightened her driver's mirror … dunno why she doesn't just get wide bullbars like me - and I went back up to the cafe thingy. Man, that café place was weirder than a Spiritualist meeting at the Eketahuna RSA.
It had this sort of schoolroom look - all these wooden desk-like tables and wooden chairs in every corner. The walls didn't have a single farming calendar on them, either. They just had these paintings stuff on the wall. One of them paintings was about a metre by two metres and had paint splotched all over it. It reminded me of the wall of old Peter Johnson's implement shed after his six-year-old daughter had found the paint shed open.
I went up to the counter thingy. They seem to keep the food in plastic cages in case it escapes, but I didn't see no movement in there. Then one of them waitress people served me. Geez, she had so much make-up stuff on she looked like Peter Johnson's daughter after she'd finished painting the wall.
They had this thing called a blackboard menu. Heck, talk about cheap. Even the fish and chip shop in town has a sign-written menu.
The girl suggested I try a panini. I've never had a pan of ninis before, so I said I'd give it a go.
Then I sat down and twiddled me thumbs until the nosh arrived. They must have got it wrong because I got something like an anorexic McDonald's hamburger with weird stuff inside it. But I was so hungry I could have eated a horse. Well, a Shetland pony, anyway.
The hamburger thingy was OK but the bacon in it was all stringy and got caught in my teeth. I was getting it out OK with me pocket knife when a waiter guy brought over a tiny stick and said to use that. It worked real good and it was great for cleaning the fertiliser out from under me fingernails, too. I've kept it for the next time I eat bacon.
After I'd finished eating, I just sat and watched the folks there. Geez, them city slickers can be posh. There was this posh-dressed sheila (looked nice but she was so old you could forget breeding with her, even with IA) sitting there with lots of bits of toast on her plate. (Yeah, bits of flippin' toast in a posh cafe thingy). And she was spreading this brown stuff that looked like a cowpat from a heifer that had been in the lucerne paddock, all over her toast and eating it!
I dunno who she was but she was brave to eat that stuff. Then again, I think she was foreign because I heard her tell the counter sheila she was Patay.
These foreigners eat all sorts of weird stuff. No good honest feed of sheep brains fritters and veges for them. No, they eat muck like sooshee and keebabs. And you've got to have a good stomach for that stuff. I mean, after that hamburger thingy I was farting real good. The cafe emptied pretty fast after that. Must have been the end of the lunch hour them city workers all have.
Anyway, after that I headed home. The motorway was interesting. It was like being in the middle of a stampede of milk-bound cows heading for the milking shed.
But finally I got out of the city and into the country. Man, was I glad to be back in the real world.
--
Allan
How the bloody hell are ya?
I was over in Wellington in me motor today. Geez, they sure have lots of motors over there. I tried to do a turn in Ngaio into a driveway leading to parking at a cafe thingy only to find some dozy city joker sitting in the driveway (in his motor, of course) looking blankly back at me.
There I was, stuck in the middle of the road like a cast ewe, with these fellas and sheilas in cars all streaming around me as if mechanical chicanes were part and parcel of motoring in the big smoke.
So I went up the road to a servo to turn around and even that wasn't easy because the forecourt was so small thanks to Wellington having damn all flat bits because of them thar hills.
Well, I got a clean turn into the driveway to the park, although the gutter was deeper than the pothole down by Blairlogie Homstead and knocked all the sheep shit off the mudflaps. You should have seen the number of cars in the carpark. There were more there than at a Wainuioru School petday.
But I slid me motor into a vacant space - the lady in the car next to me gave me this weird look when she straightened her driver's mirror … dunno why she doesn't just get wide bullbars like me - and I went back up to the cafe thingy. Man, that café place was weirder than a Spiritualist meeting at the Eketahuna RSA.
It had this sort of schoolroom look - all these wooden desk-like tables and wooden chairs in every corner. The walls didn't have a single farming calendar on them, either. They just had these paintings stuff on the wall. One of them paintings was about a metre by two metres and had paint splotched all over it. It reminded me of the wall of old Peter Johnson's implement shed after his six-year-old daughter had found the paint shed open.
I went up to the counter thingy. They seem to keep the food in plastic cages in case it escapes, but I didn't see no movement in there. Then one of them waitress people served me. Geez, she had so much make-up stuff on she looked like Peter Johnson's daughter after she'd finished painting the wall.
They had this thing called a blackboard menu. Heck, talk about cheap. Even the fish and chip shop in town has a sign-written menu.
The girl suggested I try a panini. I've never had a pan of ninis before, so I said I'd give it a go.
Then I sat down and twiddled me thumbs until the nosh arrived. They must have got it wrong because I got something like an anorexic McDonald's hamburger with weird stuff inside it. But I was so hungry I could have eated a horse. Well, a Shetland pony, anyway.
The hamburger thingy was OK but the bacon in it was all stringy and got caught in my teeth. I was getting it out OK with me pocket knife when a waiter guy brought over a tiny stick and said to use that. It worked real good and it was great for cleaning the fertiliser out from under me fingernails, too. I've kept it for the next time I eat bacon.
After I'd finished eating, I just sat and watched the folks there. Geez, them city slickers can be posh. There was this posh-dressed sheila (looked nice but she was so old you could forget breeding with her, even with IA) sitting there with lots of bits of toast on her plate. (Yeah, bits of flippin' toast in a posh cafe thingy). And she was spreading this brown stuff that looked like a cowpat from a heifer that had been in the lucerne paddock, all over her toast and eating it!
I dunno who she was but she was brave to eat that stuff. Then again, I think she was foreign because I heard her tell the counter sheila she was Patay.
These foreigners eat all sorts of weird stuff. No good honest feed of sheep brains fritters and veges for them. No, they eat muck like sooshee and keebabs. And you've got to have a good stomach for that stuff. I mean, after that hamburger thingy I was farting real good. The cafe emptied pretty fast after that. Must have been the end of the lunch hour them city workers all have.
Anyway, after that I headed home. The motorway was interesting. It was like being in the middle of a stampede of milk-bound cows heading for the milking shed.
But finally I got out of the city and into the country. Man, was I glad to be back in the real world.
--
Allan
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