Saturday Morning: Classes not Cartoons for my little students

After an infuriating discussion over Skype with Cricket Wireless this morning (a representative and a manager kept on calling me a liar about living in China) I walked past a huge wedding party on my way to work this morning. There were nine bridesmaids and groomsmen. They were taking pictures in front of an apartment complex with a beautiful landscape. It was a fantastic way to transition from an ugly phone call to a very pleasant day at work.

I had a nine o'clock preschool class. We are still learning about items of clothing and figuring out what "put on" and "take off" mean. This particular group is my favorite class so far. They are just so happy, and although they get a little distracted at times by one another, they seem genuinely happy to be there. I am happy to be there.

I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon planning for tomorrow's lessons. I taught two separate elementary level classes this afternoon the same lesson because the second class's teacher is out on holiday. My first class just had two girls in it and it was very fun. We practiced our conversations a lot more and I got to spend some extra one-on-one grammar time with both of them. We were studying the difference between holiday and festival. The students taught me that June 1 is Children's Day in China (and in other parts of the world, too) where school is closed for the day, except for a musical celebration at the schools, and parents give their children presents and spoil them. Both of the little girls in my class have their fingers crossed for a Barbie or two.

My second afternoon class had ten students. I knew it was going to be a rough class period when I had to create a seating chart just after the first ten minutes! They were rowdy, but mostly in a fun way. They are all very excited for Children's Day. They really had a rough go of learning about Hanukah. One boy came up to me perplexed, "Teacher. Those people with all the candles and all the presents. So happy. Why don't those Christians figure it out that they are losing out on presents with just the one day. They just need to put the tree in the garbage." Priceless. I can imagine all those holidays being very confusing and illogical to a boy who is a traditional Chinese Atheist.

Well, gotta go do some "research" for my high school class tomorrow. They are starting a unit on the future and I am going to show them a clip of the new Star Trek movie and have them write to one of the characters telling them what they think the future is going to be like.