Progress in the Classroom

I wish I had my camera this week in the classroom, I am SO proud of my kids!

I have been teaching Jupiter B Class for just over 2 months now. When they arrived in March a few of them cried every day they had to leave mom behind, they cried when I said 'no,' and they cried when they had to do too much in the writing department. They also giggled a lot, loved singing ABCs, and talked to me in halting 1-2 word English "sentences".

This week I got to an activity in one of our workbooks that I was considering skipping, but then thought, "What the hey, maybe they can do it!!" We've been learning questions these days, "Can you fly a kite?" "Do you like red balloons?" "Are you a boy?" "What's that?" "What's this?" (those last 2 are a LOT harder than it seems!!!).

In the usual format I'm at the front of the classroom jumping up and down and exhuberantly and gesturing wildly with my arms while asking the questions and making some 'out there' facial expressions that keep my kids giggling and following along and answering questions in my sneaky teaching game playing. At first "Do you like ice cream?" was met with "Yes, I can!" and "Can you ride a bike?" was met with "No, I don't!" As we went on though it all, repeating, repeating, and repeating it with much tri-coloured board writing and many aerobic-explanations later and they were usually able to give me the right answer.

So our exercise this week was (drum roll please)... INDEPENDENT PARTNER WORK!! They had a chart in their book with 4 rows X 7 columns..., pictures at the top (ride a bike, swim, sing) and then 3 rows of blank boxes for themselves and 2 friends: Ask a question, record the answer - pretty straightforward, yah?

Though it took me almost 15 minutes and much role playing to get them to understand the activity (what? no teacher? only me and Sean talking? but why teacher??) they set off to do it on their own. I went around one by one to each of my 5 pairs to listen in on their conversations (sometimes standing behind them and making a talking hand in front of their mouth while I spoke the questions they should use) and I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the hour, lol... wiped right out! They still really had no idea how to take turns, which questions to ask for which pictures... The charts were sorta filled out the way I'd asked, and they'd sorta asked 2 friends the same questions, but ohhhh... it was mostly a disaster, lol...

Undaunted, that's right, undaunted, 2 days later I'd made up a new sheet and we tried it again... what harm could a little sleep and a lotta coffee do, right??? I handed out the papers, explained it twice at the front of the classroom (this time a puppet was my talking partner) and I left them to do it on their own... I wish I'd had a camera!!! 

They were so cute... pencils at the ready, using their friends names, asking the right questions and catching their own mistakes - ADORABLE! In 30 minutes the whole class (less 2 students who needed a bit of hand-holding) had their papers filled out with the cutests little smiley-faces for 'yes' and sad/angry/crazy faces for 'no.' I can't describe the feeling I had sitting in my chair watching them each take their turns in conversation, it seemed that they'd grown up right in front of me over the course of that class. As I sat there musing over how incredible they all were I was all choked up with pride, they are such amazing little kids. They are 5 and 6 years old, learning a completely foreign language, and after 2 months having little mock-conversations without me!

In the spirit of pushing my luck, I decided to use the last half hour to discuss the answers... "Aran, does Daniel like chicken?" At first I was wishing for a coffee refill (and maybe some Bailey's to go with it!) but sure enough after a mostly-brief explanation of 'he' and 'she' again they GOT IT!! Sure, it's still funny to say "he" when it should be "she" because they love the overboard reactions they get from me ("Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??  She??!  Is Eric a girrrrrrrrrrrrrl??  Reaaaaaaally??!!"), but they know it's the wrong answer and the giggles last a good couple of minutes! What an amazing job this is...

I'm going to sign off for now, I just wanted to share a bit about how things are going at school... talk soon!  S.

P.S. Oh, and did I mention the small thing about how they can ALL read already??