will & t +1

At 9:30am fourteen fourth graders ran into my classroom. At 10:10am, only twelve walked out.

Two boys decided to throw some punches and attempt to gouge out each other’s eyes rather than answer my question, “Is this your pencil?”. I thought it a pretty extreme attempt to get out of English class for the day. It all started with a little poke here, a little nudge there. I had told them to “cool it” once before. My heart dropped when I realized they were actually fighting. I watched one of them absolutely clock the other with his right fist. The other jumped on top of him and went straight for his eyes. I had to jump in the middle and hold back one of the boys, while three other kids held the other. I yelled at the student spectators to get their teacher. Here’s the best part: she didn’t rush in, didn’t even look flustered. As soon as they saw her, they put down their heads and walked out. Not one word.

Let’s just say this was quite an exciting start to what would be a pretty eventful day.

Next up: twelve sixth graders. No brawling with these ones, but they did go absolutely crazy over a card game that I had them play. They were on a new lesson today: Will you help me, please? Sure! No problem! Of course! Sorry, I can’t. If you have ever taught kids, and you are reading this, you know the sigh of relief deep within when an activity actually WORKS! I heard more English in those twenty minutes than I usually do during our entire lesson. English teaching objective number one: give students as many opportunities as possible to practice the target language (thank you, CELTA).

After lunch I taught 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders consecutively. The third graders become my favorite class more and more everyday. Hannah is a sweet little one who I see at Rolly Espresso. Her mom owns it, and Hannah sits at a table and diligently does her homework. James is the class clown whose laugh causes his entire body to fold. Tony won’t leave class until he’s sure I see him wave and hear him say, “Goodbye teacher. See you later.” My dialogue with a boy named Andy usually goes something like this:

Me: How are you?

Andy: I’m GOOD! GREAT! WONDERFUL!

Me: Wow! Here you are (as I hand him his book).

Andy: Thank yooouuuuu.

Me: You’re welcome (grinning, laughing, and shaking my head).

The fourth graders were unseasonably mellow today. I put them in three groups and had them complete a dialogue about a picture. “What is she doing?”, “She’s walking”, “What are they doing?”, “They’re cooking hamburgers.” If they said it right, their marker moved around a track drawn on the board. The quietest kid in the class became an all-star student overnight, apparently. He’s the one who I strain and strain to hear because he speaks so quietly (probably so I can’t hear him, so he can’t be wrong and I won’t correct him). Today he was nailing sentences left and right. Both my co-teacher and I kept looking at each other, our expressions communicating something like this: Can you believe this! Andy never talks! He just said, “They’re singing a song!”

And the fifth graders…ah, those fifth graders. One word describes the class as a whole: loud. I’m beginning to get used to the volume while I’m teaching these kids. In an attempt to resist the urge to shove worksheets down their throats at them, I tried a task-based learning approach (that’s two marks for the CELTA today). I demonstrated a simple personal mind-map, then had them do one for themselves. Not all twenty students completed the assignment, but the ones that did were really into it. Their spelling is pretty poor so I had students yelling at me for 20 minutes, “Teacher, teacher, spelling, spelling!” After some noise that has come from these students, “teacher, teacher”, sounded like a beautiful symphony.

The day commenced with a raspberry roll cake from Paris Baguette eaten with chopsticks, some nice conversation with the English center staff, and the peace that comes from a long day teaching with a God who is for me. Who can be against me? He who did not spare His own son, but gave Him up for all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?

He has. He did. He will.