Life, Love, and Pronunciation with Miss Madeline

One of the classes I'm teaching here at Hai Duong College is English pronunciation for first year students. Our text book, and I use that term lightly, was published in England in 1977 and is entitled "Ship or Sheep?"***

In this past week's lesson, students were learning the sound "uh", as in Sunny, honey, cousin, ugly, and lovely.

The following dialogue is given in "Ship or Sheep?" to help students practice this sound. Really, what other conversation could they have given?

Russ: Honey, why are you so sad?
(Janet says nothing)
Russ: Honey, why are you so unhappy? I don't understand.
Janet: You don't love me Russ!
Russ: But, honey, I love you very much.
Janet: That's untrue. You love my cousin, Sunny. You think she's lovely and I'm ugly.
Russ: Janet, just once last month I took Sunny out for lunch. You mustn't worry. I like your company much better than Sunny's.
Janet: Oh, shut up, Russ!
Russ: But, honey, I think you're wonderful. You mustn't....
Janet, : Oh, SHUT UP!

Being Jesuit educated myself, I really feel the need to educate the "whole person" of my students here in Vietnam. You know, cura personalis and all that junk they fed us at Fordham. So after giving this pronunciation lesson, I decided to give a supplemental life lesson.

Lesson on Life and Love with Miss Madeline

1. Don't date boys named Russ.
2. Keep your boyfriend away from cousins named "Sunny."
3. If your boyfriend takes said cousin "Sunny" out to lunch, leave him.
4. If you accuse your boyfriend of thinking you're ugly, and he responds that he "likes your company," dump him, get a make-over, and go out with his best friend.

I have so much to teach here....

***Houghton Mifflin does NOT exist in Vietnam.