Teaching English

I am loving all the time I am getting to spend with the kids here and teaching English! Today was a busy, but wonderful day.  It started off early as I went to the Elementary School here and got to teach in an English class.  It was a class of about 15 students, and I knew one of the students from Plan B club.  I taught them a lesson on "Favorite Things," and each student made a booklet of six of their favorite things.  It was great seeing them work together to figure out the English word and then ask me to write the word for them on the chalkboard.  I have three more lessons this Friday at the Elementary School.  The teacher seemed to enjoy having me in the class because she asked for me to come back next year to do more lessons!

After the lesson at the school, I walked to the church and talked with the mothers and played with the kids at "Club Rybička" ("The Little Fish Club").  It is basically a Mommy and Me class that meets each week at the church.  After "Club Rybička," I went to the house of a family I am very close with. We had lunch together, and the kids and I had fun playing with their pet rabbits, making a train station, and reading Czech stories.  I probably do not pronounce all the words right, and I sound like a Kindergartener learning to read, but the younger girls are patient and enjoy when I read them a Czech children's book, and the older girls applaud at my attempt to read in Czech :) I always find it hilarious that I can read a kid's book and not completely understand what the story was about - thank goodness there are pictures to help!

I then went from the house back to the church for Plan B.  This is a club that meets three to four times a week at the school for Elementary and Middle School age children.  During an hour and a half of the time the club meets, I teach "Plan E" (the "E" stands for English!).  Today, I did a lesson on computers, and the students learned the different parts of a computer (like screen, keyboard, mouse, etc.).  The students and I then made our own laptops with paper and labeled the different parts of the computer in English.  To finish the lesson, the students used everything in the room to create cubicles and office spaces.  They pretended that they were working in an office on their newly created laptops!  We then role played, and my translator acted as the boss, and we created some pretty funny scenarios that the boss had to deal with - like an employee bringing a hedgehog to work, and all the employees having a dance party and pillow fight!  Of course, I video taped the whole thing, and we all watched and laughed at the video after the room was put back in order.  

The rest of the afternoon was filled with more games at Plan B and lots of trampoline jumping!  Tomorrow for Plan B we are at the sports fields, so now it is time to rest and relax before all the running and competitions with the kids :) 

Bye for now!