The Weekend is Here!

So ends my first week of teaching.  All in all it's been fun but a bit nervewracking at times.  I feel like a fraud!  I've never done this in my life but Tenzin says I'm teaching in ways no one else has.  Well I suppose I could take that more than one way.  At the ends of every day I sit down with my coursebook and review the following day's lesson and try to work out ways of making up worksheets to give the children a more 'hands-on' way of using the vocabulary they're learning.  They so appreciate everything!  Once when there wasn't electricity I hand wrote sets of sentences, then cut them out so the children could put them in order.  As I couldn't photocopy I had to write multiples of these so the children could work in pairs.  The paper was crappy, my writing probably wasn't great but they enjoyed the exercise and at the end carefully gathered up all the pieces and put them safely on my desk.  No scrumpling up and throwing away!  One favourite game my baby class enjoys is when I draw pictures and write the wrong words next to each.  They go crazy wanting to come up and correct it and I plead blind ignorance and pretend I cant see what the problem is.  It's so hard choosing who gets to come up The littlest ones are generally the most adamant about being chosen and I have to let them stand on my chair so they can reach the whiteboard (which is very old and terribly cracked).  Sometimes in their enthusiasm they forget they don't actually know the answer and don't know which picture should be linked with which word and then I let the other children encourage them.  Learning names is quite hard but coming to me gradually. On my first day I took group photos of both classes and a woman who has a photo kiosk in the market blew them up to A4 size for me.  Result - the boys take great delight in having a proper class photo up on the wall and I've written the name of each boy on his picture so I can remember which is which.  I suppose its natural that those I remember are for a reason - either because they're cheeky, particularly kind, in need of extra help etc.  The quiet ones who get on with they're work are those whose names I'm battling with.


Manju summed up life here a few mornings ago.  She said "When Sheru (family dog) sees you he is happy happy.  When children sees you they are happy happy".  Her way I think of saying what better way to start each day.