Tuesday, December 16, 2014

ESL Stories

As promised, I'm going to begin to share quick stories and funny things that happen during class. I jot them down as they happen so I don't forget. I tend to think that I'm going to remember something, only to try to think of it later, and only remember that it was something funny.... So here are a few anecdotes from the last couple of weeks....

I'm going through the Christmas story one character or element at a time with First Grade (today we talked just about the angels and their involvement). The other day we were talking about sheep. So I asked: "What do sheep have to do with the Christmas story?" One girl answered something about dancing, to which another replied, "No! Sheep can't dance. They don't have hands."

During a rainy lunch/recess time, Preparatoria (Kindergarten) was eating in the class and playing a guessing/I-spy type of game, asking "What's red and a circle?" and answering "A ball." They mostly used pictures or objects that they could see around the class, which made it easy for me to guess because I just had to look where they were looking.... So at some point one of my class clowns looks directly at me and asks, "Who has a mouth and glasses?"

With Christmas coming up, we're doing a lot of practicing of Christmas songs and dances. One of the boys excitedly exclaims to me in class, "Miss! Ya entiendo que es Merry Christmas! Es la cumpleanos de la escuela!!" (I understand what is Merry Christmas! It's the birthday of the school!) He went on to explain his reasoning being that one of the songs contained the phrase "Happy Birthday." I'm not sure which song he's referring to, but I did manage to explain to him that it is the birthday of Jesus we celebrate.... not the school.

Sometimes kids and their language skills just make me laugh. I had one of my First graders come up and ask me all in Spanish: "Can I tell you something? But can I tell you in Spanish because I don't know how to say it in English?" I ignored the fact that she had just asked me all of that in Spanish and let her continue.... I didn't entirely follow her story, but it was something about Santa.

In both grades, we've been talking about bees. In First Grade, we read a story last week all about Honey Bees. I would ask at each page the jobs of the different types of bees that the story discusses. We get to the drones, the only male bees in the colony. In the book, it says "The drones help the queen." So I ask the girls, "What do the drones do?" Their answer? "The queen."

In Preparatoria, we're reading a story about flowers, so I took some time to explain nectar, pollen, and bees. Not sure if they got it, but they got some of it... So then I explained the difference between bees and wasps. I drew a bee with honey and a wasp with an arm showing a stinger and a sad face... I asked what bees make, and the answer was a resounding, "Honey." Then, as I worked on the drawing of the arm, I asked what wasps make. One girl hesitantly responded, "Sandwich?"

More to come soon!

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