You have to grab teachable moments and run with them because they can make learning real. My philosophy is If it's worth detouring from the lesson, it's probably something worth learning.
Here's one of my favorite teachable moments. I was teaching beginning English to immigrant folks, and one day I went into Subway to get a sandwich, unfortunately the lady behind the counter had the worst enunciation I had ever heard. It was painful to hear and I was constantly saying "'what". Finally, I said yes to everything and got some sort of sandwich. Nothing I really wanted, but at least our conversation was over and she wouldn't have to hear me say "what" every five seconds.
Anyway, that night in English Class, I told this story, and said that from now on, we were going to work on proper enunciation so impatient Americans wouldn't be saying "what" every five seconds.
We started doing "Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously... blah, blah, blah", and several other tongue twisters that I knew would help them with their diction. Not on the lesson plan... but vital to their English language success.
That's a really good idea!
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