Happy Halloween

This week at our city English Club the theme was Halloween. Next Saturday’s club is a movie night (When Harry Met Sally) and the following is Nov. 1, when we’ll do a Decision ’08 theme. Mike was on a train coming back from a training conference for the new volunteers who are here now for their site visits, and Meghan, Forrest and Sarah have all finished their service and have gone home, so Tim, Ashley and I were left to lead the club. Tim made a PowerPoint presentation about the history of Halloween, and we talked about some symbols of this interesting adaptation of All Saints’ Day and Día de los Muertos. I made sure to wear my dancing skeleton shirt, and we taught the students to say “Trick or Treat!” to the cloakroom attendant who gave them candy. The main activity of the club was to work in groups of 4-5 to make up a short scary story based on one assigned symbol (ghost, witch, jack-o-lantern, skeleton, black cat). We gave them a list of useful “scary” vocabulary and 15 minutes to create mini literary masterpieces. I’ve included here one of the stories that the authors gave me after the club. I’ve written the story verbatim, including spelling and syntax errors, not to emphasize their mistakes, but to give you a good idea of the abilities and limitations of ESL students working quickly without the use of a dictionary.

“There was an eve of Halloween a couple of tourist were watching some cureous things in an ugly half-ruined castle. Suddenly they heard some strang noise. It seemed the somebody was cackling. All of a sudden the door creaked and they all felt blood-chilling.
The room was full of mirrors, which began to shiver, and in one of them they noticed a misterious sillouhette. The mirror reflected an uggly person, who was transperiant. It began to scream and tried to catch them. They paniced and run away. At that Halloween they had unforgetable evening. So welcome to our hospitable castle and enjoy our misterical but cheerful guy.”
– Katya and Zarina, First-year students at North Kazakhstan State University.

Like the other three stories produced during club, the story incorporated some suspense, a bit of action and even genuine fright, only to end cheerfully (although a bit cryptic) and without bloodshed or dismemberment of any kind. At the end of the club I was assured that (1) there is some real talent developing in the 20+ students that attend our club, (2) we still have a lot to teach them about making scary stories scary, and (3) perhaps we have something to learn about the importance of happy endings.