So today wasn't as traumatizing as yesterday but I'm still in shock mode. I don't have a set schedule, I don't know what subjects I'm teaching tomorrow, nor do I know what age they will be. I guess I'm just going to have to do it live.
Today's arts & crafts class was 2nd standard (ages 6-7). The kids were so nice but the project I had planned for them was too difficult for their age. We did an origami paper heart but it ended up being me folding the heart for most of them.
My English class at the government school today went exponentially better than yesterday. There are 40 girls ages 12-13. The first portion of class as a disaster, I tried to have them all get out of their seats and find themselves in groups according to their birthday month. We counted how many had birthdays in each month and who was the oldest and who was the youngest, etc. This worked for a bit but they weren't learning much English since they were all screaming in Tamil amongst themselves trying to do the exercises.
So, the girl in the class who not only is the most mature, but speaks the best English became my helper. Since half the class doesn't understand what I am saying, and half the class does, she translates my instructions into Tamil for those who don't. We wrote a story as a class on the blackboard today. They started to get bored as we wrote the story and were asking to play a game, which was my original intention with this whole story-writing escapade. So the story was finished and I read through each sentence with everybody and corrected the grammar mistakes. They wrote the correct version of the story in their notebooks. When they hand in their notebooks tomorrow I'll take a photo of one of them and post it for you guys.
I've learned that these girls need to work on their writing and grammar. They are all pretty good with English at this point. My plan for tomorrow is to learn parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives and then adverbs. Most of them will probably already know what these are. Then, I'm going to have them partner up and think of as many adjectives as they can and then go to the board and write them on the blackboard. Hopefully we will have a good list of adjectives at this point. For the next part, I'm going to have them write their names in their notebooks vertically, and pick and adjective that describes themselves for each letter of their name. So mine would be: M=Magnificent, A=Awesome, R=Radical, I=Ingenious, A=Artsy, H=Hungry!
If that doesn't use up the whole class period, I'm going to quiz them. "Sanjay is not as happy as Lakshmi. Nithya is as happy as Sanjay. Who is the happiest?"
Then, if all else fails, we'll do comparative and superlative adjectives. Slower, slowest. Taller, tallest. Smarter, smartest. More beautiful, most beautiful. Etc.
Here goes nothing. Note to self: get an umbrella before the monsoon sets in this weekend.
Today's arts & crafts class was 2nd standard (ages 6-7). The kids were so nice but the project I had planned for them was too difficult for their age. We did an origami paper heart but it ended up being me folding the heart for most of them.
My English class at the government school today went exponentially better than yesterday. There are 40 girls ages 12-13. The first portion of class as a disaster, I tried to have them all get out of their seats and find themselves in groups according to their birthday month. We counted how many had birthdays in each month and who was the oldest and who was the youngest, etc. This worked for a bit but they weren't learning much English since they were all screaming in Tamil amongst themselves trying to do the exercises.
So, the girl in the class who not only is the most mature, but speaks the best English became my helper. Since half the class doesn't understand what I am saying, and half the class does, she translates my instructions into Tamil for those who don't. We wrote a story as a class on the blackboard today. They started to get bored as we wrote the story and were asking to play a game, which was my original intention with this whole story-writing escapade. So the story was finished and I read through each sentence with everybody and corrected the grammar mistakes. They wrote the correct version of the story in their notebooks. When they hand in their notebooks tomorrow I'll take a photo of one of them and post it for you guys.
I've learned that these girls need to work on their writing and grammar. They are all pretty good with English at this point. My plan for tomorrow is to learn parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives and then adverbs. Most of them will probably already know what these are. Then, I'm going to have them partner up and think of as many adjectives as they can and then go to the board and write them on the blackboard. Hopefully we will have a good list of adjectives at this point. For the next part, I'm going to have them write their names in their notebooks vertically, and pick and adjective that describes themselves for each letter of their name. So mine would be: M=Magnificent, A=Awesome, R=Radical, I=Ingenious, A=Artsy, H=Hungry!
If that doesn't use up the whole class period, I'm going to quiz them. "Sanjay is not as happy as Lakshmi. Nithya is as happy as Sanjay. Who is the happiest?"
Then, if all else fails, we'll do comparative and superlative adjectives. Slower, slowest. Taller, tallest. Smarter, smartest. More beautiful, most beautiful. Etc.
Here goes nothing. Note to self: get an umbrella before the monsoon sets in this weekend.
Monsoon sounds cool! The helper girl sounds like a perfect way to get them to understand! Do you have the address of where you are staying so that I can street view it on Google Maps????
ReplyDeleteYeah really she's amazing. She's one of the students who just kind of took charge and obviously saw i needed help getting these 40 kids to do something. Look up Lady Andal School 7 Harrington Road Chetpet Chennai and you'll find it. It'll come up as Ilango's artspace, which is on our campus.
ReplyDeleteDude I need to figure out how to get my ass to a nightclub. There's hella Goa Trance out there I just need to get there!!!
There's no good pictures of the school but yay anyways! You should find lots of Goa parties and take lots of pictures! Also, I heard a few new good jokes last night on North Ave: What did the ceiling say to the wall? Hold me up, Im plastered! And: What did the tampon say to the other tampon? nothing, they were both stuck up twats!
ReplyDeleteI will take some photos and videos and put them up here for ya since you're not on FB :)
DeletePS nice jokes. reeeeeal classy.
DeleteWow I have no idea how you understand english grammar but mad props to you. I had no idea what comparative/superlative words were until this post! shows how good of an english native I am :p I'm glad things are getting better! It sounds like the rest of the summer might end up being surprise classes though, you should try and think up a back up plan for any class/any age/any grade so that way if you have too many kids or if you original plan doesn't work you can have something to fall back on (like a quick crafts or drawing or something maybe?) I'm glad the kids are smart and know english! and thank Brahman for the smartiepants! Give her stickers!
ReplyDeleteYeah really she helps me get everybody to quiet down, but it's a lot of yelling and i'm usually very very sweaty after the class.
DeleteToday I tried to teach the 1st graders (age 5-6) Simon Says, they got bored really fast. Then I tried to teach them "Head, shoulders knees and toes" and they also got bored of that. I tried to play hangman and they couldn't understand that. They all were asking to color so I just handed out paper and they all were so well behaved as soon as I gave them something to do. I showed them how to draw a cat and they all drew it! One boy was like, "Can you draw this for me?" and instead of doing it for him, I said, "Why can't you draw it?" And he said, "I can't. I can't. I don't know how." And I showed him step by step how to draw the cat and he was so happy afterwards!!!
aw yay! cat! hey maybe you could give drawing lessons. show them quilling and stuff too! omg your kids sound awesome :D
ReplyDelete