Classroom Anecdotes from the First Two Weeks of School

Hours taught: 40ish
Classes shortened or canceled for meetings, celebrations or holidays: 6

Most amusing:
A 7th grader (the youngest students I teach), came up to me after our first English class and said "Thank you teacher. I liked class and also you are very beautiful." Would have been really excellent had he said this in English, but I will take what I can get. If my students thinking I'm attractive gets them to learn and like English, I guess there are worse things...

Runner up- I danced in front of 200 students with one of the male teachers during the Musa Dariana competition (previously described) at the school where I teach on Saturdays.

Surprising smash hit: A very good friend.
This is a very simple chant to practice verb "to be" disguised as a song.
(I am, am, am a very good friend....You are, are, are a very good friend...etc)
The kids loved this song, and they wanted to come up to the board to sing it again on their own after we had moved on to another activity. Then, I heard one of my students singing it to a friend from another class as she walked to the bus. I almost jumped for joy and wanted to do this.

Something I did for the first time: Jazz Chant
I implemented a jazz chant in class to practice the modal "can"! Popularized by educator Carolyn Graham, jazz chants use the rhythm of spoken English to help students learn "language chunks". (MMM chunks of language...not  as fun as chunks of say, chocolate, but still fun if you play your cards right.) It was a impromtu thing, so it was a little rough, but it was a good time.
Can she milk a cow?
Yes, she can. Yes, she can.
Can he drive a car?
No, he can't. No, he can't. (Finger wagging included here, obviously)

Something I'm thankful for: Working with a Nicaraguan counterparts.
Not only is it really fulfilling and fun, but they also get to share their insight for things that will resonate with the students. For example, when we were teaching our lesson on abilities, we were going to use the phrase "use a computer" as one of the vocab words. My counterpart realized during class that there isn't even a cyber cafe in this town and instead added in two phrases as a replacement: "milk a cow" and "cut grass" aka chapear potrero aka cut tall grass with a machete. The students had actual everyday exposure to these concepts and the lesson went far better as a result.

Tried and true (ish): This is a pen.
Did one of TEFL volunteers favorite dinamicas, "This is a pen," with varying degrees of success, based on level of pena in the class. In some classes, the kids laughed because it was funny (which is the point). In some classes, they laughed and covered their mouths and almost had breakdowns from nervousness. So, mixed results. But when it worked, it worked. This is a great dinamica to introduce objects, especially classroom objects, but you can do it with almost any vocabulary, or you can do it with older kids to work on intonation (whether your voice goes up or down at the end of a sentence) or sentence stress (what word within a sentence is emphasized). It goes like this:

A: This is a pen. (Person passes pen to another person)
B: A what?
A: A pen.
B: Oh, a pen.