Up and out early ( I think I’m the only one staying in my hotel), and off to today’s first school. Last time I came here I did all the teachers workshops so this time it’s just kids. But they were asking for ideas the teachers could use in class, so instead of the usual “show“, which they had last time, today I just went with doing a normal genki lesson.
The first school was really small – 9 kids! So they added in the kindergarten kids to make it about 15. And I sort of went with an easy option by reviewing “How are you?” ( they had it perfect), then the How are you? Monster Game, then Rock, Paper, Scissors, then the Halloween Theme and Harry Potter ( Halloween Remix). They actually chose to do the Halloween theme, which was cool, and the scream in the middle was brilliant!. And my voice was really dodgy after just 5 minutes, so all the English I let come out of the CD Software, which gave me a rest, and showed the teachers that not actually being able to speak English isn’t too much of a hindrance. Last night I also knocked up an animation for the Halloween song, which worked really great with the projector ( if your school has one, try it with the CDs, the kids love it!), so I think I’ll put that on the Kids Page this month. So the kids were really, really good, with ultra high stamina to do so much in just over an hour.
The best thing was as we were walking the out of the school (during cleaning time ) the kids were holding up their brooms and shouting out “brrrrroooommm” ( it’s in the Halloween song), and some of them were jokingly asking for help with the cleaning by shouting out “help me!” ( from the Harry Potter game ) which was good, it’s always nice when the kids actually use the English they’ve learnt!
The second school was again similar, with 20+ kids, and they were great. Then after lunch the third school was good, not quite as genki as the other two, but still very good. Which is just as well, as apparently last time I was there I gave them a bad review in the blog! But it is really cool seeing how the kids progress over the years. Although obviously not as proficient as if they had had a full time course, it’s really nice to see them improving, and that the material really does work! The main thing though is the kids attitude, they were so into learning and being genki.
So then a meeting with the teachers about the curriculum. It seems the problem now is teachers being bombarded with too much stuff about elementary school English, most of it written by people who’ve obviously never set foot in a real elementary school! Then back to my hotel where I’m going to grab some food and a nap. Then if it’s anything like last night, without the interruptions of the phone or email I might get a lot of work done, I certainly did last night. Maybe rather than being in the city, I should just rent somewhere out in the middle of nowhere!
