December 17, 2007

Wild, Draw 4!

This morning I wanted to reward the students and play a game of UNO for awhile to give them a break from the textbook. The only rule was if I heard any Chinese, the game would be immediately over- I'm trying to crack down on Mandarin in class. One of the students named Charity is a giggler. If she feels uncomfortable, she giggles. If she doesn't know the answer to a question, she giggles. If she is corrected in pronunciation, she giggles. It was discovered 20 minutes into UNO that Charity had no idea what she was doing. Even if the current card was a blue 4 for example, and Charity had plenty of blues and even a red 4, she'd still put down a Wild card. Once she even put down a Wild Draw 4 and then another regular Wild on top of it! No one could understand the careless use of the precious Wilds. We corrected Charity and tried to explain the value of the Wild cards. She just giggled. This continued again and again. I was starting to wonder if Charity understood what we were saying in English.
This is the kicker...Charity constantly had at least two Wild cards in her hand at all times! She had no idea that they were rare. And the victim of all the Wild Draw 4's was Amy, ever competitive Amy. I'd watch her grit her teeth with each round. At one point I asked Amy, "How do you feel?" She said in a low voice "I want to hit Charity!" I laughed and Charity giggled, Amy's eyes just remained on her 15+ cards. The next round Charity put down a green skip on a blue 5- totally random. People were about to throw their cards in the air. I interjected with "No Charity! Wu or lan... that's all." (Translated: No Charity! 5 or blue...that's all." Ruth, the constant rule-keeper exclaimed, "Miss Allison you just broke your rule!" What's more Charity just giggled, picked up her card and put down another Wild Draw 4 for Amy. Poor Amy.

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