Green Cross Code

This is what happened during one of my classes this week:

I introduced the phrase "Let's get down to business" and put it on the board right away. Even though I also explained when and in what kind of context (eg. meetings) we use the phrase the student, as he was trying to figure out the meaning for himself, asked about the word "down". I then introduced the phrase "It doesn't make any sense" and went on to elicit the continental Green Cross Code - look left, look right, look left again and if it's safe then proceed - which I came across in Michael Lewis's Implementing the Lexical Approach. We then applied the code on the peculiar word "down" and together made an important breakthrough...

It turns out that this is a major hurdle for low level English learners who approach new vocabulary as unrelated single word items. By introducing the code, I helped the student discover how the English language must be understood in chunks if it is to be understood at all.

Great stuff, Michael!