Carol’s students

I’ll let Jerry blog about his students but wanted to give you a little more info about my “kids”.  My “orange” kindergarten class has three very good English speakers and one fairly good whose parents all speak English and lived in English countries, US, Canada, or England.  They all help with interpreting but the boys  are challenging to keep on task.  We have a student book for the class and we just finished body parts and are moving on to senses and feelings like sad, happy, etc.  The week before the holiday I did a class on eye color.  My “purple” class has no English speakers so everything is with hand motions.  The teachers are all helpful but limited English.  I’m impressed with how many words the kids  have learned.  Many of them didn’t know hello or good bye at the beginning of the year.

My one first grade class has a couple of girls who come up to me in the hall and the beginning of class and say “I love you”.  I started saying “I love you too” back to them and then they started with “I love you too”.  I’m not sure they have a clue what they are saying or where they learned it but it’s always a good feeling to get that special hug!  I have one little boy who speaks English and helps out with instructions but after two months most of the kids are starting to understand when I say “draw” of “color”.  It’s pretty basic instructions.  We’re now studying school objects with our Potato Pals books.  In my other first grade class I have a little girl who has become my teacher’s assistant.  She knocks on the board when people are noisy and tries to help me get them to sit down.  I’m going to give her a “Reinforcement Card” which recognizes someone for doing a great job or something special. Her English is very limited but better than most in the class.

I’ll jump to my 4th grade which only has 6 students.  I had 4 of them in my extra English lesson but 3 passed the recent English test so there is only one little girl left.  She has hardly said a word in English since I started.  At our lesson during the last class when it was just the two of us, I was able to get her to actually tell me to “stand up” sit down” “go to the board” and a few other instructions.  She loved telling me what to do and I was thrilled that she used some English.  I’m looking forward to our next class this week to see what else I can help her learn.

I’m still struggling with names.  Not only are they different but difficult to understand what the students are saying.

That’s my world these days.  I know all my previous co-workers at SAMHC are struggling with funding and too many clients and a lot more challenging situations than I have!!  I feel some guilt that I’m only worried about who is learning English but I am thinking  of all of you  and wishing you well.