!!!!! Today I taught my first lesson alone and it was such a high. Words cannot explain the feeling at the end of the lesson, when you let the class perform on their own and you just sit back and say "wow, I taught you that! You learned that from me!!"
So the first class I was with today was a little crazy. They go into a special room once a week to have a video conference with this very old looking cute English Grandma lady. They have a little microphone and a very old fashioned TV with Grandma England looking out at them (kind of like a skype screen) and playing games with them. Today they had a box of paper dolls, and Grandma England would tell them to "pick up the girl with the straight blonde hair" and "put on her yellow skirt" and stuff like that. Then they would show the doll to Grandma England and describe it back to her. It was so cute.
They had other stations of things to do including just games we play (battleship was the game for today) readings on culture, and other stuff like that. Group activities. So as you can imagine, it is a setting out of the norm for them and they were wired. The teacher told me to go station myself at the battleship table because the students weren't understanding the game. So that's what I did.
The kids were super cute, but it was hard to force them to speak in English and even harder to try to get them to understand the game, since I could only explain it in broken french. They were amazed when I started speaking French, their teacher had told them that I only know English, so they would be forced to speak English with me, but they weren't getting it! When I started speaking French to them they got wide-eyed and looked at each other and giggled. One tiny little boy said (in French) "Madame Jennyfair, you have a foreign accent that is very strong!" They realized soon that I am not totally fluent, and that they would have to help me speak French to them. So just us communicating became a game...a word here in French, a word there in English. It was fun.
One boy (I already know his name...Luca....) is an obvious total troublemaker. One of the little girls caught him looking at me for a long time when my back was turned to him and she told me (in English this time with an adorable french accent) "Madame Jennyfair, Luca..eeh loves you!" And that turned in to a whole big thing that lasted the rest of class. I did not handle it right because I lost control of the giggling little children. By trying to be their friend and joke with them, I lost my leverage. When I left, it was so loud and they were so crazy that I was terrified of ever doing this again.
But there was still one more class for the day! Luckily, it was Sylvie's class. I met her and she told me that her class learned "Heal the World" in French, and today I was to teach them it in English. She kept saying it until I finally asked "Is Heal the World a book?" She looked at me like I was crazy. "It's a song! By Micheal Jackson! Do you not know heem?" Do I not know Micheal Jackson? That was crazy talk. But I did not know that song, which she said was crazy. Should I feel bad about this? Haha. I really have never heard the song, and after today, I must say, Micheal, I am really not impressed. It was not one of your best.
Anyway, so I took 15 kids into the next room...and had to teach them a song I didn't know. (btw these schools have NO electronics...no computers, not even a CD player or tape player...so if you want to play them a song...you sing it to them...) I got creative. I asked them to sing me the song in French, so they knew and remembered the tune. Then I taught them the chorus in English...line by line, having each person pronouce each part out loud as we went along. They were getting it!!! I had them piece together the first half with the tune, which they remembered. When they nailed it, I got excited!! When I got excited for them, they were encouraged, and the next time I asked if someone wanted to try to say the whole next sentence by themselves, every single hand went up. It was so inspring. They were so happy to be speaking English!! At the end, they proudly sang the chorus totally in English, totally without my help. It was amazing.
This is obviously not my class but you get the picture :-)
In the first group, I had a little girl who was super smart. If I got stuck explaining something, I could talk to her in my broken french...she could understand it, and would translate to the rest of the class for me. It was so cool. It is like a puzzle...communication. If you don't get the right fit the first time, if the lights don't flicker on in their head, then you try it a different way until something else works and clicks. It's a fun game.
The next class had a lot of boys so there was a lot more whispering and chatter. But by the end of class I still was so proud to hear them singing the whole chorus in English! When I left that class, I realized I already had favorites. I made a mental note to try not to be so obvious about it, and I wondered if all teachers had favorites, and all parents for that matter! haha.
Needless to say, It was a very encouraging day :-)
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