Teaching Annecdotes, Week 3

Most entertaining: Teaching "Baby Shark" to a bunch of reluctant 10th graders

This is a camp song that a PCV taught us during our training...that we're really obsessed with, because it's goofy, and you can use it to review a bunch of different kinds of vocab. My counterpart and I were pretty excited about "Baby Shark" but our enthusiasm was not exactly matched by our students, understandably, since they are at pretty much the worst age ever in terms of being embarrased in front of your peers (14, 15, 16...). But with much cajoling, we got them to sing...sort of.

Here's the lyrics to "Baby Shark":

Meet the shark family....

Baby shark...do do do do do do...Baby shark...do do do do do...Baby shark....do do do do do do do Baby shark.... (accompany this by holding your arms out and clapping your hands together vertically)

Momma shark...do do do do do....Momma shark...do do do do do...Momma shark....do do do do do....Momma shark (accompany this by clapping your hands together from the elbow)

Papa shark...do do do do do do....Papa...do do do do do do...Papa shark...do do do do do...Papa shark (accompany this with the biggest clapping motion you can make)

Grandpa shark...do do do do do ....Grandpa shark....do do do do do ...Grandpa shark....do do do do do...Grandpa pa (accompany this by knocking your fists together - toothless shark!)

You can add extra family members, use mother/father,etc. for begginers.

Now, on to practice irregular past tense verbs! Still using the same do do do do do/ repeat 4x rhythm...

Went for a swim (make swimming motions)

Saw a shark (make a shark fin on top of your head)

Shark attack (Flail wildly)

Lost a leg (Jump around on one leg- You can add other body parts if you want to review that vocab)

Happy shark! (rub belly)

Most difficult: Teaching class without a board

At the school where I teach on Saturdays, one of the classes got locked out of the classroom they use in the annex. So we had an outdoor class. Luckily, there were chairs for most everyone and a table that a bunch of students could write on. Unfortunately,there was not a board. Given that the students don't have books and that English basically does not sound anything like it is written, a board is a pretty essential thing for teaching.

We were going to teach colors and few other adjectives, and luckily i had color swatches. We rigged up a board out of a few pieces of scrap paper that I had on me, and used the "board" to introduce the concept of adjectives coming before nouns.

I had the kids go on a scavenger hunt to find colorful objects and then we described them. It kind of worked. 

Lessons learned: Don't count on technology

One of my counterparts and I planned a lesson about listening, using some recordings we had. We didn't have a text version of all of the recordings...While we did have electricity, the cd player refused to play the cd we had. So we had to improvise most of our lesson. Next time, I'll be sure to bring a text version along.