chai

Share a tea with me, my blog keeps saying. Well, it is not just a virtual invitation, at least in a certain amount of cases. Some of my students have the privilege to share and enjoy a real cup of tea with me, instead of the cyber tea parties I am organizing for you, rest of the world. Sometimes I serve herbal teas (chamomile is good for the belly, mint is refreshing and helps digestion, lemongrass calms your nerves, and the list could go on). Other times we have black tea, like Earl Grey or English Breakfast, to pay tribute to Britain, a tea giant and an English-speaking civilization. Occasionally, we take an Oriental trip to China or Japan, for some non-native adventure, and sip green tea, such as gunpowder or sencha. Last time, however, I thought of trying something less popular and well-known: I made us some Indian spicy-milky chai.

I searched the web and found a bunch of youtube videos about how to make this delicious beverage. I figured, why not kill two birds with one stone? Not only did I use the video as instructions for making the tea for the class, but I also incorporated it into the lesson plan. I prepared a warm-up task (jotting the ingredients and the instructions on small pieces of paper) and made a guessing-listening exercise, just to lead to the ecstatic moment of tasting the chai itself.

As always, I served the tea in the beginning but I didn't introduce or comment it. We just started the class with the planned warm-up. My student had to guess, based on the ingredients (like ginger, milk, cardamom, etc.), what it might be for. He felt it was some kind of tea but wasn't sure. Then, to get closer to the solution, we moved on to the instructions. He had to put the different steps of its preparation into order. More or less he got it right. Afterwards, we watched an authentic video, made by an Indian woman, to check how much his guesses were adequate. 

Finally, when the instructions became clear, he finalized his visual collage about "how to make chai". As a true reward, we could complete the exercise by even tasting and enjoying what we learned about.