Practicum!

We just had our first three days of practicum! The Marshall Islands advertised a ‘summer camp’ for school children – that was basically three days of school.  

Tuesday night  we were assigned a grade and put into groups. I was given 1st grade, along with Melissa (who is also going to Arno!) Dan, Brian and Fiona. It was a really good group of people. After we were broken into group we were responsible for choosing a topic and creating cohesive lesson plans for a three-day period – each teaching a 30 minutes session everyday. We decided that we would do body parts and numbers – and we most definitely did notttttt see what was coming at us!

The first day we arrived at Woja – the school we were teaching at – there were 6 kids. Two of them were three years old, and only one of them had ever been to school before! We were their first ever school experience! And although that's cute – it's not so cute when you don’t speak a common language. It's a strange feeling when you sit there – and neither of you have any idea how to understand the other – and when we spoke the little Marshallese that we did know, they looked at us like we were crazy.  

For the first hour of class the kids were great. They sat in a line and just stared at us, so, SO eager to learn. They repeated everything Melissa and then Brian said, and loved everything. I was third though, and by the time I was about 10 minutes into my lesson, their attention span was non-existent. They started rolling around, drop kicking each other, doing cartwheels and just laying down. There were a few kids that paid attention, and I could get most of them in by doing random TPR (total physical response) commands, but other than that, they were hopeless. We gave them a break, hoping they would get some energy out, but that only made them worse. The kids continued to get progressively worse as the day went on. It was exhausting.  

The second day was probably the worst though! We got through the first lesson, and they were gone after that. Running around the room, and not really wanting anything to do with what we were trying to do. I attempted to play matching bingo with them, but that was a lost cause after the first minute. So we basically just did TPR seeing how that was the only thing that could entertain the majority of them for an extended period of time.

The third day, however, was the best. We got rid of the 3 year, got a couple more kids who were older, and they all stayed with us for most of the day. I went first yesterday, which was a completely different experience! I actually had the attention of all the kids. We sang our good morning song, learned a new numbers song, and then played a jumping frog game, where they learned jump, hop, run, walk and skip! Haha  - they were awesome at it by the end of the day.  

One of the cutest things about teaching these kids is how excited they get about everything, and how eager they are to learn English – but they still don’t have a clue. They will repeat everything you say and just think it is the funniest thing in the world. Sometimes it can be a bad thing, but we have definitely learned our lesson that we need to watch what we say, because they can pick up on bad words in no time! A few of us were talking in the classroom the other day while the kids were at recess, and of the guys sees a huge lizard on the wall and not thinking exclaimed, “Oh sh*t.” He didn't realize Matela had come back in the classroom, and from behind us we all heard this faint little, “oh sh*t”. As hilarious as that we to hear, we definitely learned that we always have to watch what we say in a culture that tries to emulate us and repeat everything we say! It was a little bit hilarious though!