“I've quit cheer leading”, she said to me affirmatively.

I didn't see it coming, not only as the statement appeared to be completely random, but also because this student has been coming to our school since she was four or five, and several years later, she's been doing cheer leading for as long as we have known her.

“So what are you doing instead?”, I asked, as I know Japanese children rarely quit anything without taking up something else. “Kickboxing” she answered plainly, as though the transition from super cute to super tough was completely ordinary.

“Cool!”, I thought, but I was still shocked. lol

こども英語あれこれブログのトップへ

“I asked my family for a frindle, but they just ignored me”, one student said.

I imagine that in the busy world of grown-ups, there is little time and energy to heed some of the nonsense children sometimes utter, so the above anecdote is both funny, and somewhat excusable.

Especially considering that the word “frindle” isn't actually part of the English vocabulary, and for that matter not even that of the local student vernacular; not yet

It was still (and still is) an interesting experiment to conduct and see how a new word would behave and grow in the non-English-speaking world.

That's exactly what we did when we decided to test the word “frindle” in outside the classroom, and see how people would react to it.

The idea comes from a book that we are currently reading by the same title.

“Frindle” is a completely made-up word, invented by fifth grader Nick Allen, the protagonist of the story who, upon learning that all words were invented at one point, and that their acceptance depended on consensus and widespread use, decides to accelerate the process of word creation, and give a familiar object a new and novel name.

The neologism sparks a fierce thought battle between traditionalist teachers on the one side, and the progressive youth on the other.

Back to our Saturday ISG classroom.

We have some very creative students in our group, who are more than capable of masterminding the inception of a new and even more provocative word, and when it happens, it will make history.

こども英語あれこれブログのトップへ