More Teaching stories

I subbed for afternoon Kindy on Wed. These were older kids- 5 yr olds- who have been learning English for a few years so they can communicate a lot more in English. Even when they were playing on the playground they could speak English so that was cool.

There was one girl who's English name is Christina! That is pretty rare. But she was bad (or rather, "naughty" as everyone says, because children are not bad! They just do bad things!) and the Chinese teacher kept saying "Christina..." in this warning voice, and I would be like uh-oh, what am I doing wrong? Oh, it's the kid.

Kindy was more fun than I thought it would be but I am pretty beat now. I feel like I'm always fighting some sickness here. Between the air pollution and the fact that hand-washing and covering your mouth when you cough are yet another way that Westerners are different from people here, it is hard to stay healthy. My one roommate, Theresa, actually never gets sick. But Kathryn and I are always coughing and sometimes actually sick.

Here are some pictures of my cute Level 1 class, the one I have written about before. In the one they are practicing their conversation for Performance Day (when the parents come to see what their kids have learned). It shows the range of ages of the kids- the big one is Kevin and the small ones are Michael & Tina. As you can see Michael is so crazy- one minute he is reading his lines, the next minute he is trying to hit Tina's paper. The others are of the whole class. This is a small class- most classes I have 15-20 kids in a room this size.