Scenario:
You arrive at the orphanage for the second day. Paiwan shows you the week's schedule again and gestures at the upper levels of the building. You walk up to the second floor and along the hallway, peeking into the doorless classrooms as you go. You suddenly here your "name" ("You you you!") coming from the class of 12-year-olds you had just passed. You go back to the door that is at the front of the room. The teacher sees you, stops mid-sentence, bows to you, gestures towards his chair, and then walks out of the room, leaving you alone in a room of 30 students with whom you have no shared language.
What would you do?
(For the record, I sang songs with them, read the story of the tortoise and the hare from the English workbook one kid pulled out, and played Blink. It was the hardest 90 minutes of teaching in my life and I did a rather crappy job by my standards. Even trying to come up with songs led to me staring blankly into space, keenly aware of how rapidly I was losing them. If you can think of songs with very simple, repetitive lyrics, please put them in the comments for future teaching emergencies! We did "Old McDonald" the Hokey Pokey, "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" and I tried "Once there was a Snowman," but ran into problems while trying to explain what a snowman was. They did like the "Baby Jaws" song, though.)
Are you allowed to just do whatever?
ReplyDeleteIf so, you could try and lead some sort of paper craft. That might be good for learning a few simple English words?
Remember this game? I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing my comb. I'm going on a trip and I'm bringing my comb and my toothbrush. Etc etc having fun with volcab nouns and memory skills. Could be fun!
ReplyDeleteIf you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
ReplyDeleteIf you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it,
And you really want to show it,
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands.
A common variation of the fourth line is "Then your face will surely show it."
The song usually proceeds with other verses that replace "clap your hands" with alternate phrases such as "stomp your feet."
OTHER VARIATIONS
If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it
If you're happy and you know it, then you really ought to show it
shout "Hurray!"
(hoo-ray!)
say "Amen"
(Amen)
slap your legs
(slap slap)
turn around
snap your fingers
(snap snap)
slap your knees
(slap slap)
nod your head
(nod nod)
tap your toe
(tap tap)
Honk your nose
(honk honk)
Stomp your feet
(Stomp Stomp)
clap your nose
(sniffle sniffle)
What crowd doesn't go nuts for "Baby Jaws"? Talk about trial by fire teaching...at least now you can honesty say you are prepared for anything!
ReplyDelete