Tuesday, August 30, 2005

M8-80 or more interminable stories from Teaching English

I'm pretty sure I haven't talked directly about my M8-80 class. Anyway they're a little like my Triumvirate of Terror class only about 7. They're all quite smart for the most part, but they're too smart and easily bored. Whenever I give them a spelling quiz one of the little boys will say, "Teacher, so easy!" However, they also have little fear of me and usually only the threat of homework times one, or my personal favorite 5 days worth of homework times 20 and the Chinese, which elicted a squeak from them last time, gets them to behave.

Their final is coming up although I'm guessing they'll all be fine. We finished a little earlier, and since the people here never ring the bell at the exact time, I finished my lesson with about 4 minutes to spare. So for lack of anything else for them to do, I had them stand in a line by the door. All of a sudden all the boys said "Teacher, paper, scissors, stone!" and so for three long long long minutes, I played paper scissors stone with a group of 7 year olds usually 4 of them at the same time. It's longer than it sounds, trust me.

4 comments:

kvr said...

You might consider (if you feel like you have a good poker face when you want to try it, and that the kids are good-natured smart, and if you're feeling linguistically nimble enough...) my favorite game with bright kids: Messing with their heads.

Consider my favorite situation and adapt it for your own needs!

[Child eats a bowl of cereal for breakfast.]
Me: Yuck! Why are you eating a big bowl of ketchup for breakfast?
Kid: I'm not eating ketchup for breakfast!
Me: You know, ketchup is not breakfast food. Maybe you want some cereal?
Kid: I'm eating cereal! Not ketchup! Look!
Me: Do you suffer from some sort of disease that makes you want to eat big bowls of ketchup? Is it food allergies?
Kid: Why can't you see that I'm eating cereal??? I'm not eating ketchup!
Me: You're supposed to eat ketchup with things, not just by itself...

etc, etc.

The reaction from this mind game with children is a pleasing mix of confusion, frustration, and (if they're good-humored, this has also backfired on me) a good amount of "teacher is surprisingly stupid/smart" laughter.

This is also a good game to play with your peers. Hee.

lovelesscynic said...

Something I have occasionally done is when a kid is being particularly loud during roll call is to say for example, "Eric is not here." When Eric is here. Usually Eric will then say something like, "HEY, I am here!" and then I'll just say "Eric is not here." again. The rest of the kids usually enjoy it a lot.

kvr said...

It is the awesomest game of all time.

Anonymous said...

Interested. Keep Blogging!