Tales from the classroom 2

So, I finished teaching just over a week ago. It was quite sad saying goodbye to all the children during that last week. I taught just over 200 kids across my six classes in Grade Three and three classes in Grade One.

Ok, so I might not have learnt all their names during the four and half months I taught them and I admit I had my favourites but I will remember the faces of each and every one of them (partly because I took so many photos in my final week)!

There have been many highlights during the semester, some of which I have already blogged about - The Hong Kong kids, comments from Water (who I have since renamed 'Nigel') such as "ah come on, man!" in an American accent.

Me and the now infamous Water (Nigel)

Other than those highlights and others I have previously mentioned, I remember a boy called Willy, from Class 5 in Grade Three, single handedly winning a game of hangman for his team. I usually write full sentences on the board opposed to single words to get the class thinking about sentence structure more than just vocabulary. More often than not, Willy would work out a full sentence (sometimes up to 10 words long) after only four or five letters had been revealed. Having played a lot of hangman with these kids, I have not seen another player come close to this, I am told though that Willy is somewhat of a genius so that would probably explain why he is so good. He will probably carve out a career working on code breaking when he finishes his studies.

Another thing that made me laugh was actually during the final week. I had three lessons with each class and as we had covered everything in their books, I decided to treat them by showing some of the Wallace and Gromit movies as their 30 minute length would fit perfectly into my 40 minute lessons. By the final lesson, I came to realise that the kids had watched so much Wallace and Gromit that they could happily sing along to the theme tune. I don't know why it took me by surprise but it did. Take a look at this video:-

Also during the last week, a lot of the kids presented me with gifts. Some of the gifts were really nice, such as a Chinese Opera mask style metal bookmark, a laughing buddha ornament and a Parisian notebook. However, a handful of the gifts were obviously pulled out of the bottom of their lockers including used highlighter pens, foil packaged preserved vegetables and Chinese text books! I appreciate the thought though, and will take most of the gifts home with me but the Chinese text books may have to be left behind...

I have really enjoyed teaching these kids and because of that I have signed a contract for the next school year, I hope I will get the opportunity to teach them again. If not I am sure I will see them around the corridors, just hope I can remember their names...

Me and one of my Grade Three classes

Me and one of my Grade One classes