Good morning, teacher

Good morning teacher, Good morning teacher,

How are you? How are you?

I am very fine thanks, I am very fine thanks,

And you? And you?

I learned this song to the tune of "Are you sleeping?" or "Frere Jacques" from some of my English students during my first English class back in December. I was very impressed until I realized that most of the kids didn't understand what they were singing. And that's where we started, with greetings, in the very first class.

I taught weekly 1 hour English classes between December and February, and will be starting up with a new course in April. When I arrived in the community in November, I was immediately approached by several people about English opportunities, but I figured my attendance would drop off after a month or so once my students realized how ghastly English is. However, over the course of my 11 classes my attendance actually rose from 12 to 16 students, between the ages of 7 and 50. Every week I taught a verb and a topic such as greetings, the weather, the kitchen, jobs, the kitchen, and self-presentation.

The hardest part is teaching to a group of such varied level and age. At first I was hesitant to play games and sing songs with adults in the class, but it turns out that that my hit activities for everyone were singing "Feliz Navidad." drawing and coloring pictures of the vocab words we had learned, playing the game Telephone with an English word, and playing another game that involves a lot of jumping up and down and no English.

By conversing with some of my more advanced English students, I was also reminded how tricky English really is as compared to Spanish. How do you explain why the word "do" is used in questions, optionally with affirmative responses, and necessary with negative responses? For example, "Do you read? Yes, I do read OR I read. No, I do not read. "

A man who self-studies English from old magazines asked me what "walk the dog" means. I started out by literally translating, and quickly realized that it does translate in Spanish. Then I realized how bizarre the concept of walking a dog is out here. Why would anyone walk an animal that spends all day scrounging around for food? Why would anyone even get that close to such a flea infested animal? I think I ended up translating it as "going for a walk with a dog" which makes a whole lot more sense.