Building A Thriving Language Program: “A week before each fall’s homecoming football game, I would announce that we would be meeting to make banners at lunch and after school. I would gather pieces of butcher paper and markers, and students would write and draw whatever they wished (within reason). This included messages one might expect, such as ‘Go Raiders!’ and ‘Let’s win!’. As it was Japanese and no one else would be able to read it anyway, students also wrote such things as, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’, ‘You look like a goat,’ and ‘I’ll bet you can’t read this.’ They thought this was funny, and the exercise prompted students who normally could not be bothered to turn in homework to come to me asking for such important terms as ‘goat’.”