Pronunciation, Homonyms, Hocky Pocky and More!

Journal for March 19, 2015
Message of the day:
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” – Henry Ford

This is not the only welcome banner for us

Don, being the early morning person he is, was already up and about as Montana and LuRue went downstairs like zombies to go get breakfast. They all met up with the teacher that was there waiting for us to take us to the school.

The first class was split into two. Don got one third while the other two thirds went to Montana and LuRue. Don started his class by doing vocabulary from their textbook. He then moved onto introductions where everyone told the class their name and one thing about themselves, such as a hobby. Don did a solo performance of “I’m a Little Teapot”, which got a laugh from the class. Don worked on pronouncing words that sound similar such as hill and heel and he ended his class by introducing Simon says and the “Hokey Pokey.”

Don’s second class was a class he had already had so he did this one a little differently. He still did some Simon Says and reviewing vocabulary, but he also introduced “It’s a Small World After All”. He had his class do a direction activity where the students would explain how to get from point A to point B.

Montana is a star among the students

LuRue and Montana did a short lesson on pronunciation, then divided the class into 4 teams to play the homonyms game. There was a piece of paper with 4 different homonyms used in sentences (one as an example). The place where the homonym was on the sentence was a blank, so the teams had to write down which homonyms were used. Whichever team got the answer right first would get a point. After the ten minute break, they moved onto some Simon Says, which the students seemed to really like. Then, they did another team game where we would give a word and the team would have to use the word in a sentence somehow. Which ever team got a correct sentence written first got a point. We added the points between the two games to see who won. We ended the day by introducing the “Hokey Pokey”. After several duo performances and some coaxing, the students finally joined too.

Montana and LuRue used the same ideas for the next class. The only thing we changed was, this class had a little more time, so we added a drawing section to the team games. The drawing game was where we told the teams what do draw such as a a house with a bed and whoever drew it correctly first got a point.

Don discusses teaching plans with the English teacher

After both classes were over, we all headed back to the hotel for lunch – some cabbage-like vegetable, a pork dish and a Chinese-style spinach pie. The group exchanged stories of their mornings during meal time.

The afternoon was spent relaxing, wandering around, and looking for a cheap place to get laundry done, which was not successful, even after LuRue’s charades attempt and Don’s broken Mandarin.

All in all, it was another good day.