First Teaching Impressions...

I taught my first English classes this week!!! It was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. We began adult English classes last week on Wednesday, but when we got there, about 20 kids had shown up for classes too. So, on the following Monday we split up the class and put 14 years and older in Jenessa’s adult class and then in my class ages 13 and younger. On the first day of class I was very worried about boring the kids, to be honest. The beginning of the first class was a little slow, but after I taught them a few songs and a few games the class started to go very well! In the first class I taught the students colors, basic greetings, the abc’s, and some parts of the body in english. Their favorite song was the body song, “Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes…” The first class had about 20 kids in it, but when I returned on Wednesday I had 36 kids. When I arrived on Wednesday all my kids ran to hug me and ask what games we were playing today and if we could do the body song again, and they really wanted class to be longer. We spent a lot of Wednesday reviewing what we talked about on Monday because there were so many new students in the class. I made the mistake of having an activity outside in the middle of class and it was really hard after I took the kids back in the classroom to reinstitute some order to the classroom. So, lesson learned, games and overly exciting activities and songs will be done towards the end of class. I really, really hate lesson planning, but the actual teaching part is a lot more fun than I gave it credit for. Afterwards I was exhausted; kids take up a lot of energy! I think, in part, what makes teaching these kids so fun is that they want to be there and they want to know how to speak English. The doctor’s wife, just a few minutes ago, was explaining to me that to pay for English class is very expensive here, so when free English classes are offered people jump at the opportunity to learn something new. I love these kids already and I’ve only had two English classes with them! This is going to be so awesome! I pray that God helps my Spanish so that I can teach them better!