1 + 1 = 3

“So class, that is why 'act' can be used both as a verb AND a noun.”

“That means it can be an adverb!!!”

“Well Julie, I’m not sure, why do you think it could be used as an adverb?”

“Because adverbs are just an extension to a verb!”

“You’re right that adverbs are used as extensions to verbs! How about we look at some examples and try and put adverbs where a verb would normally be and see whether act can really be a verb, a noun AND  an adverb!”

Whilst this is quite a low level student I’m dealing with in my imagination, I believe that the same process could be used for any student who presents a ‘wrong’ answer. I understand that you can not take the time to rebut every single wrong answer a student presents but in cases like this it’s important to understand the student might not be the only one with that answer. So you’re not just helping one student, but all students in their quest to find the ‘right’ answer.

It is also important to remember that there isn’t always just one right answer and there can be many different responses in the humanitarian studies, especially in poetry and literature evaluation and analysing.

I was unable to test this exact technique on any of my friends (I feel it may be patronising if done out of a teacher to student relationship). I have previously used this technique with my friends in disagreements. Most recently on whether the letter Y is or is not a vowel. It relies on logic and experimentation but it works to prove whether the answer is right or wrong and you never know, you could be the one that’s wrong.

P.S: Y is a sometimes vowel.