Thursday’s class wasn’t great. My observer yesterday told me I needed to do more dialogue exercises in class. My kids are like four years old so any dialogue exercise I do with them has to be really, really simple. But I shrugged and did what he asked because this is the shit we get evaluated on.
I walked in today and thought, for our first exercise, the “Warmer” we’d do the Telephone game, or Whispers, whichever you prefer. You know the one, you line up single file and someone whispers “Apple” or whatever in the first person’s ear and it goes down the line and you see what comes out at the end.
I don’t know if I’m not explaining these things the right way or if I’m making it too complicated but it just didn’t work. The first boy refused to continue the whisper because he said it would break the telephone.
Fine, let’s do something else.
So we did a vocab review with spelling and then I tried to introduce some dialogue. “I fell and hurt my elbow.” So I drew some stick figures on the board and walked them through a scenario of running around the playground and tripping.
But, I got them to say the whole thing, I don’t think they knew what they were saying, but they said it. It was a really long grueling lesson. I was bored and I know they were bored. The only saving grace is that the lady that was supposed to be observing me today didn’t show up. The downside is, I have to do dialogue tomorrow so that it says in my teaching practice workbook that I used the technique.
We also found out today that before Thursday, we have to find a local and give them a one hour free tutoring lesson in English. So you know, little introverted me is super excited about that bullshit. But it’s only one hour and one of the guys who’s lived here for six months is already tutoring a girl and he said she probably knew a couple other people that would like a free lesson.
And if that doesn’t work two other girls and I have decided we’ll just go to the mall and put a sign up that says “Free English Lesson” and see what happens.
But after some looong lessons on grammar, I went out to eat with three other people to a little Korean BBQ place just down the street. It was great. We spent about two hours talking about classes and kids and the assignment and ribbing each other about our countries (one of the girls is from England). It was great food and great conversation. The meal itself came with some cabbage, onions, mango, some kind of melon, mixed greens, and carrots. Then we ordered seasoned beef, BBQ pork, bacon, rice, salted mango, mushrooms, and spring onions. And there was a little grill in the middle of the table so everything was made right there fresh.
Final bill: $7.50.
So, lousy day in class and an assignment I’m not looking forward to, but a great meal to end the day. I suppose, we’ll just try again tomorrow.
Forever Fiction Books 