“Teaching children is an accomplishment; getting children excited about learning is an achievement.”
Robert John Meehan
Another week has passed and like the last, it flew! I believe I have finally found my rhythm to teaching and everything has been going very well.
This week, we worked with the students on introducing important classroom phrases and the food unit. Some of the classroom phrases we introduced were structured to ensure that we would be able to maintain effective and efficient communication throughout our entire time teaching them. One of my favorites for this week was a call and response. To get the student’s attention and to maintain high classroom energy, we decided to incorporate a fun call and response. The teachers say “To Infinity” and the students say “and Beyond!” The students were initially hesitant to the call and response but with several practice calls, it quickly became a favorite amongst the students. In addition to classroom phrases, we also introduced the food unit and discussed restaurants. We even got to practice ordering from a menu with the students. Overall, the content we shared with the students was very interactive and the kids loved it.
My BaoBaoBan class this week was wonderful! I crafted an age-appropriate presentation that the kids LOVED! I had a lot of fun reviewing the alphabet and going through the animals with the students. I introduced music and repeat-after-me songs this week and got a lot of participation from the students. Many of the students sang along or danced to the music. This sight filled me with happiness. I am looking forward to next week’s class and introducing even more fun and interactive ways to learn English.
A new addition to this week’s activities was a class with a teacher from one of our partner schools. This class was unique because it was particularly set up to introduce the Duke students with no Mandarin background to the language. The class went by really fast and there was a lot of content that was covered. I can only recall a few words and phrases but it is way more than I knew one week ago! I am very grateful for the opportunity and look forward to learning even more.