The weekend is
over, so now it’s time to get down to business. I haven’t told you about this
awesome school yet! This campus is huge: it’s like the size of BYU-I’s campus.
There are grades 1-12 here and most of the kids stay in the dorms during the
week. Only the rich kids get picked up by their parents every night, but most
everyone else goes home on the weekend. Unfortunately some of the less rich
kids (this is a high end school and it’s known across the nation so it costs a
pretty penny) have to stay sometimes a month before they get to go home. I
asked a native teacher about how the little kids get a long with out a mother
and she said the teachers check in on the kids but they mostly brush their own
teeth and fold their own clothes…. And then she changed the subject. So I don’t
know exactly how that works other than they have about 7 beds to a room and I’m
assuming like an RA or something that checks on them besides the teachers… but
I don’t know.
Because
this school is so high end, they have HIGH expectations of their teachers and
especially of us. Us foreigners have it pretty good in Nanjing, we’re pretty
spoiled here, but that comes with a price.
We are under close watch and frequently monitored while we teach. We
have to write up our lesson plans every day and submit them to our head
teachers so they can send them to another head honcho person and that person
will send them to the parents of the kids. Fun stuff, right?
I
really like ILP because it’s so organized, but it’s hard to see that organization
outside of America. The school assumes we know exactly what we’re doing and
that we are super qualified… haha we just fake it till we make it :D ILP does
still have certain things and requirements that we need to fulfill while we
teach. Here is an example of a lesson plan:
2/19 Wednesday
Title:
Telephone
BMC:
#16 Concept of Preferences
Materials:
Game Board, Button, Dice, Cardstock Telephone, and Pipe Cleaner
Tasks: Pull out the phone and talk about
it. Have each of them tell me their favorite something into the phone while I
am pretending I have a phone and am on the other line listening. Then pull out
the pipe cleaner and talk about it and how some phones need cords to make them
work. Coil it around my finger and ask if they like it coiled or straight
better. Then pull out the game board. Explain that the games is called
Telephone and that each kid takes a turn to roll the dice. They move the button
forward on the game board as many spaces that the dice say. If the button lands
on a certain square, then I whisper a secret message into someone’s ear and
they are supposed to quietly pass the message along. If the message is wrong by
the time it gets to the last person, they have to move the button backwards 1
square but if the message is right, then one of the students gets to send a
message.
2/24 Monday
Title:
Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, Part 1
BMC:
#9 Concept of Personal Greetings
Materials:
Cape, Apple, Nametags of paper and string, Hats, Book, Lines
Tasks: Ask kids if they know the story
of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. If so, have them tell the story, if not,
read the story. Each page read, have them repeat it to you in their own words.
Have them predict what is going to happen. After reading the FIRST HALF of the
book and their predictions, make each student a dwarf (you can use the
traditional names or have them come up with some on their own). Have them tell
you about their character. You are Snow White, so have them tell you what you
should do for the first little while then introduce everyone into the scene.
Pretend there is an audience so they can “talk” to the audience while
introducing themselves.
The first week I taught Games and the second week I taught Drama. We
are required to include 6-8 objects in our lessons and describe them in great
detail or have the children describe them if they already know some English. We
are also required to write out 15-25 steps either in sentence or bullet form.
While we plan we are to focus on the activity itself but during class we are to
focus on the language. Also, each lesson we are required to incorporate a Basic
Mobilizing Concept (BMC) for more intensive learning which gears their
conversation to more everyday situation type speech. Some BMCs include Concept
of Names: What’s your name, What is this called, and How do you say this in
English; Concept of Wants: I want a bracelet, He wants a turn, She doesn’t want
to sit; Concept of Questions and Answers: What’s wrong, How did I do, Who is in
line, Which is the biggest; Concept of Sensory Experiences: I see a clue, I
hear something, I feel something squishy, I smell cookies, It tastes yummy; and
many more like that. At that same time we are to discipline the kids with a strict
routine, pass out tokens when they use a BMC correctly, teach the lesson, and
keep track of the time. The first couple days were definitely overwhelming but
I slowly worked on one thing each day until I felt comfortable doing everything
ILP required of me in one lesson.
Every day gets better and easier,
the next step is to truly start loving the kids and enjoying their sweet smiles
and kind compliments.
