Mahachap visit one - teaching

Teaching

The classroom I was teaching in, normally just for Yr5 but I used it for all classes, as my head hit the roof in the other rooms.

So eventually down to the teaching, which is why I am here. This provided a lot of problems in the school, mainly due to the children’s and the teachers’ lack of English. Only one teacher spoke English and even after being assured all the children come speak some I found out that only the year 5’s could be communicated with. However, I managed to get through it mostly with the help of Jyuti, who instead of teaching first aid acted as my impromptu translator. I taught colours to Year 1 and 2, the greatest barrier being pronunciation of the words, but I am happy that every child now knows at least one colour in English – it’s a start. With Year 3 and 4 I taught directions, specifically, forwards, left and right. I’ve don’t this before in reception and it was hard then, but this was a lot harder and to be honest near the end I had to give up and play a quick game, as it was just not working. However, as they left the classroom one child shouted ‘right’ and turned right. It is strange how at least one out of thirty understanding the concept makes a difference. The twinning programme was due to be conducted with Year 5, in the session every child wrote a basic letter to their twinned school explaining who they are, where they are from and asking about the English children.  Now as I said there English was better than the other children, but this simple letter still took a long time to construct. The biggest issue was encouraging children to offer suggestions of what we could put into the letter, i.e. My name is ..., etc. I think that began to get the hang of being involved in the lesson in contrast to the normal listen and repeat/copy down. I’ll have to wait and see if they are more forthcoming on my next visit, as I only had the chance for one lesson with each class, even with Yr 1 and 2 and Yr 3 and 4 being combined. The children here are great though, they love being in school and learning. I just need to get them out of the habit of repeating everything I say.