In my BaoBaoBan, I was touched by how willing the students were to communicate with me. Not only they were trying to repeat after the English phrases I told them but they actively tried to help me explain and understand at certain times. For instance, a sentence using the word “groceries” came up during the online create-a-sentence game. As I was brainstorming ways to explain the word, I said “Hmm, how do I explain ‘groceries.’” Student E saw the picture associated with the word and said “买的东西 (Things that you buy).” After receiving insight from her, I repeated what E said in English. I was glad that she had been paying attention to link the picture with the English word, learning to associate the terms, and actively trying to engage with the class.
In class, we played Pictionary. I started to draw sport-related actions on the whiteboard and had the students guess. E brought a pencil and a paper as well and made me guess. When I asked “What did you draw? Is that your toy?,” E replied “橡皮.” When I asked what that meant, she showed me another simple version of it. I realized that she had been referring to the eraser and asked her to repeat it in English. Then, I led the conversation into talking about stationaries and taught them “pencil” as well. At the end of the class, E showed me a cute sticker doll and a toy palace. Beyond learning, I am happy to see how the students are opening up their hearts to build relationship with me.
At the beginning of class, we played an online Connect Four game. I won the game by setting up a trap. When the student blocked my horizontal path, I connected four diagonally. Andrew explained that I used a “strategy.” Student V wrote in the chat that it’s a “策略.” I enjoyed collaborating with my teaching partners to teach and interacting with the students to facilitate their learning experiences.
Also, I received emails from my students this week which made my day 🙂