Even though my summer English course has been over for a month now, I still want to tell you about it. I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but have gotten busy with work/ life, you know how it goes...
For nine weeks of the summer break, I taught a 2 hour English class each morning, Monday- Friday. As I was told would happen, my class started with 3 students, grew to 6, then 12, then 20 by the end of the first week. After a few weeks it fell to 15 then to a solid 10 or 12 who stuck around for the remainder of the course. I wasn't offended by the falling numbers, mostly because they could be explained by summer trips to visit relatives, teens who had to stay home to watch their siblings, kids with other extra-curricular commitments, teens who had to help in the fields when it was time to plant/ fumigate, etc. Most of the kids who had to stop coming had big explanations like the ones I mentioned. Others still came, just not regularly. So it goes with summer activities. Like I said, not offended. That was to be expected.
The core group of kids I had for the whole 9 weeks was fantastic. They tried hard, put themselves out there (after a few weeks), and had fun. In Peru, it is very common for kids to be very shy and unwilling to speak up in class. For that reason, and many more, I focussed on activities to get them to talk and practice speaking English in front of the group. The small class size worked in my favor there. Our activities centered on vocabulary and included a ton of practice. My goal was quality, not quantity for the material they learned. We had 1 new theme per week, then reviewed and practiced our material cumulatively.
They loved competitions and games, so we did a lot of races, "find the word" games, and of course, we played BINGO every day. The stickers I got in the mail from Annah and Sara were a big motivator for class participation, but nothing motivates people more than a good old fashioned game of BINGO with a lollipop for the prize. Gotta take advantage of the optimistic little gambler in us all, right? I learned my Spanish numbers by playing hours of BINGO in Mrs. Scheur's 7th grade Spanish class, so I thought I'd try that out on my kids. Turns out, it still works. We also used a jump rope to practice numbers, which I thought was fun. One brave student jumps, and the rest of them count their jumps out loud. Our record is 52. For animals and food we played a lot of charades and Pictionary. "Simon Says" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" were favorites for the body parts week. We also went over colors, greetings, days of the week, months of the year, and of course, the alphabet.
I learned a lot with this class and really enjoyed it. I found that having more material than you need is always better than not having enough material, you always need a plan (even when you think you don't), kids need breaks and variety, kids are forgiving with my Spanish mistakes, and so much more. Like I said, the group of kids I had was great. They responded well to reinforcement and punishment, they helped each other, they enjoyed being there, and they were generally very respectful. They taught me a lot and I'm pretty sure they learned at least a little bit. Even if they can't recite a bunch of English vocabulary, I hope this class gave them a little more confidence to talk in front of a group, to try, to make mistakes, and to not be so hard on themselves. Maybe I'm being too optimistic with that, but I can dream. At least in small part, I could see by the end of the class that they seemed to have more confidence, how long that stuck around after the class was over is another story, but I was happy with the progress we made as a group. They made a few friends in the process and had fun, so that in itself makes me happy. I gave them something to do and kept them out of trouble for awhile, so if nothing else, I have that :p
Anyway, I am planning to do some English teaching throughout the school year and will probably repeat this class next summer, so this was a great way to get started. This was also a good way to get to know the kids in the area, and their parents too. I had at least 3 different schools represented there, so that was nice too. There is something awesome about running into the kids from my class around town and getting their random hugs and 5 minute conversations. Oh, and people around town call me 'profe' or 'profesora' (teacher) now, so that's fun too :)
Jump rope counting
Body part labeling
Word races
Vocabulary review
Some of my kids on the last day with the certificates :)
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