I'm sitting in the airport now in Panama City ready to fly home for Christine's wedding (couldnt be more excited!), so I figured I would quickly write an update.
Work at the University has been going really well. Teachers are beginning ask for my help more now and use me in their classrooms. I have also taken on a Reading Club and a Drama Club, both of which I have two classes that alternate every other week. On average, I have about 20 first year students in each of the classes while each session is scheduled for an hour and a half. I've had one week of each class so far and it's clear that they are eager to listen to and learn from a native speaker.
My focus in Drama Club is to give the students a chance to learn English in a different way from what they may be used to in the daily classroom--from activities, games, role play, etc. that gets them moving around and simulating realistic conversations and scenarios. For the first class, I just wanted to get to know them better and give them an opportunity to speak a little bit and get them comfortable participating in the club. I had them pair up and I passed out some interview questions that I had made for them to ask their partner. I created the interview recording sheet in a way that would prompt them to figure out how to form the question and the response themselves. Some of the questions were what they liked best/least about Panama and what is today's biggest problem in the world/ideas for solutions. After they finished, I had them role play a press conference with 4 celebrities in the front, everyone getting a chance, and the rest of the class (the press) ask them questions. Interesting to hear the responses about Panama, as many cited the corruption in government and a solution (when I asked for it) being more of a focus on values and morals in the education system at an early age. I've also noticed that they respond well to songs and learning the lyrics to music seems to be an effective (and sneaky) way of getting them to both read and speak the language. Had to go with the great R. Kelly for the first one--"The World's Greatest."
For Reading, I plan on collaborating a lot with the English reading professors and go through/break down passages or stories that they are reading in class. I'm stressing reading comprehension strategies and getting in the habit of stopping often to summarize the previous paragraph(s) before going on. I also used some jokes that play on words/double meaning--I was, as expected, the only one laughing when I first showed the answers (probably would have been really entertaining for you), but these seemed to loosen up the atmosphere once they understood them too. A big thing for me here is to get these students actually interested in reading in general (not only English)...I continually have the image of the crowded beach I went to here in which not one person had a book/magazine to read. I'm hoping a little JK Rowling will provide "a little magic" as I will start reading the first Harry Potter book with them the next class.
Anyways, stories that I don't really have time to write fully about now, but are worth noting: my house is finally completely set up and the mosquito/stray dog problems seem to be done with for the most part; I got hit on by a guy who, at first I thought was just friendly when he sat at my table at a local restaurant until he asked me over to his house for dinner and whether or not I like to get intimate. (oh, and he writes romantic stories just for himself)...quickly got out of that situation; a student (female this time at least) proposed to me (politely declined); I got in a fight with a cab driver over 50 cents (you'd understand if you lived in Panama); I've also made good friends with a couple taxi drivers; I travel 45-50 minutes by bus to my university everyday when, in reality, its a 4 minute drive; everybody at my university (students and professors) are amazing; and finally, I cried not only because uconn won the championship, but because that was the worst ever basketball game ever I've ever seen ever, let alone an ncaa championship game...ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment