Denise and I finished our first semester here at Korrnell on January 20th. Yay us! The next day we did not get to sleep in. We do not get a vacation between semesters. We get to organize and facilitate Winter Camp. You may be thinking...camp! Camp was always fun when I was a kid. Sure, in Canada it was. Swimming, arts and crafts, canoeing, horseback riding, tennis...great stuff. In order for kids to learn English Korrnell has organized a Winter Camp around some basic themes. Restaurant, drama, supermarket, emergency, transportation, sports, science and department store. Not bad themes...this could be fun.
People are partnered up and given a theme. Denise gets Sports. Lucky...I am stuck with Department Store. Department store! I don't even like shopping very much!
So with our partners we designed stuff for the kids to do for two weeks. The day before the camp starts we had the afternoon to decorate and transform regular classrooms into our theme....using only construction paper. Denise was stuck trying to make a monopoly themed room and I was stuck trying to create my own department store...still using only construction paper.
The night before winter camp, I find out...by the way, you'll be doing this on your own. Your partner has to teach Pre-ESL classes. Okay.....I don't have all the materials I asked for. I'm not sure about the class schedule. Luckily, one thing Korrnell does prepare you for is winging it. We are now experts at pulling stuff out of our asses...time filler extraordinaires!
The first week is over and it was a success! By that I mean there have been no casualties. Myself or the children. Teaching the same subject over and over all day for one week though can fry your brain a little. Yesterday was the wrap up field trip for week one. We went to a ceramic museum. Great idea. Let's go to a place where young children can't touch anything, have to be quiet, walk everywhere and go shopping with little to no money. Here is the gist of the trip.
"Don't touch that!"
"Shh, listen. Be quiet!"
Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese
"Teacher I'm tired. Teacher I'm hungry."
"Teacher when do we eat?"
"I have no idea."
Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese
And week two begins.....
No comments:
Post a Comment