My Honeymoon is over !

After one week of teaching, I have the feeling my honeymoon is over :-(

I realised that I had to handle two levels of students, the ones who can read simple things, and the ones who barely know the alphabet and of course can't read at all. This means that when I gave a task, the formers were finished right away while the latters had not understood yet what they were supposed to do ! This means the formers had nothing to do but fool around while I was striving to have the latters begin the task... At this very moment I had a glimpse of what could be the feeling of the sometimes "exhausted, worne out, overwhelmed" community of teachers!

Furthermore, after a while the kids especially the boys feel more comfortable and test your boundaries ! Yes just as the kids do in our Western countries. So I had to take action and gave three warnings in a row (unhappy smileys) to be displayed on the behaviour chart of the class which had its little effect. I also needed to be much more stuctured in my lesson plans and activities, otherwise  the kids behave just like a leaking ship, they start to feel free and mess around. This was an exhausting week but I felt much better at the end of it, could handle better the activities and had the kids work in two differents groups for certain tasks.

The little Cookie who knew the alphabet but was unable to read a word last week was enjoying reading simple sentences after two weeks which was really nice to see.

Conversely I don't hold much hope concerning the little Ami who doesn't know the alphabet AT ALL and is the only one who NEVER listens, always doing something else. I just can't figure out how to manage her!

My little Japanese boy, Seiji, is my Benchmark since he doesn't speak Lao nor English I monitor him quite closely, if he understands what's going on, the others should also understand!

Well I'm getting there slowly but surely. And I can still say that my students are my little cuties!

My FEP2 class

My FEP2 class with Lao assistant Vickham.

Daily morning exercise at Oscar.

My Lao English class !

What a treat !

The beginning of school was last monday for the students, so I eventually got to know who were going to be my new students. I have a class of 13 kids from 8 to 10 years old. And believe me the Lao kids are so so cute !!! Boys are so lively and enthusiastic and inquisitive when the girls are so shy and introverted. I guess this is a cultural feature. I also have three foreign students, a girl from Vietnam, a boy from Japan, very shy and lost (does not speak Lao) and a little Chinese kid, very ugly, fat, and mean on top of that ! However those kids are such a treat !

My heart was already broken after three days of school. One kid was withdrawn from my class to be sent to the "normal English curriculum" class because his level of English was too high ! He was such a nice smart and lively kid, I was so sad to see him leave! But in the end it's better because he was so far ahead of the others and was thus overshadowing his classmates. The class is more well balanced now. However I have my burden too! A little girl Ami, she does not know the Roman alphabet, she is as slow as a slug, has the attention span of a gold fish and is only interested in drawing princess gowns and crowns !

Of course my concern is to be able to cater to their different needs given that I have different levels to deal with - some can read a litlle bit some others don't even know the Roman alphabet- , and that they don't get bored and have fun while learning.

This is an auspicious start however. I'm so happy to deal with those kids eventhough I have to sometimes raise my voice (but they are so responsive) !

Hereafter a picture of my class the 1st day. One kid (with hat) has left (as said) and three others showed up in the meantime. The young man, Vickham,  is my very nice Lao teacher (assistant).  I'll post an updated picture soon...