Do the Dew

Today in one of my classes I taught the phrase:

"Do The Dew"

They seemed to enjoy learning this bit of cultural and commercial knowledge. But they also enjoyed the Mountain Dew that I bought them all to reinforce my point. I had to carry this huge solar blanket covered cooler or "chilly bin" as they say in New Zealand up three flights of stairs to the classroom.

They all appeared to enjoy the Mountain Dew. One student out of the 10 had tried it before. Everyone drank the entire bottle by the end of the two hour lesson. They said it reminded them of cider. So that led to a discussion about ciders and fruit punch. We discussed the differences between Japanese cider and American cider and then we discussed fruit punch in the same manner. It turned out to be a rather long discussion, nearly an hour, and they learned quite a bit.


View a 10 minute video collection of Mountain Dew Commericals above from Youtube.com

The reason I had brought up this "Do the Dew" thing to my Japanese adult students was due to finding Mountain Dew on the shelf of a local supermarket. I had been shopping at GinBiru, a small grocery store located about 5 minutes from my apartment. I had went there to buy fruit because much of their fruit and vegetables are grown locally. So I bought some fruit. On the way out though I made a swing by the drinks and found that they had about 10 bottles of 500ml (20 ounces) of Mountain Dew.
I knew right them I should pick up one for each of my students and let them try it. I find it is always interesting to use things that you find in real life and work a lesson around that sort of thing to help build interest in teaching English. Using a textbook is useful but with real items and real situations it's more interesting. I am always looking for something new and exciting to use for classroom stimulation.