So yesterday I taught two kids classes. In one, a new boy joined.
I think I’m in love. He’s SUCH A CUTE LITTLE FIVE-YEAR-OLD!! He’s not supposed to speak Japanese, but his little smile melts my heart. 😀 He doesn’t always stay in his seat, but it’s not out of maliciousness. He just wants to doodle on the board because it’s fun! 😀 He kept answering in Japanese :/ With enough high fives, he’ll get into it, I think. :} He got along immediately with the other two, and his personality helped balance the class out.
And in my second class, the kids are a year younger and listen to the teacher even less, and are really hard to control. Yesterday, it was only the youngest boy since the other girl was absent. He doesn’t understand that he’s there to learn English, so I decided that I needed to “play with him in English.”
GOAL ACCOMPLISHED. After the lesson, he goes to his mom, “We played! I laughed a lot!!! 😀 😀 :D”
We threw the huge plushie die and counted in English. I am totally in love with him, too. XD His giggle is SO CUTE!!! The other teachers in the next room must have wondered what we were doing, because we were both laughing our heads off and screaming random English words. (It was relevant to the lesson, but an observer wouldn’t get it).
I totally succeeded in keeping his attention the whole time. I pointed to the flash card “Pencil” and then he repeated, and then the picture book and he touched the pics of pencils, and then I pointed at myself and said, “Pencil?” and made a confused face. He LAUGHED and laughed and it was soooooooo adorableeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. ;____; I made him pronounce “J” a bunch of times, like “J! Jam! jars! jamjamjamjam!!” and how many shapes there were and school objects. He wanted to keep writing J on the board, but it turned into just doodling, so I made him stop but he didn’t want to, so I had to try and distract him with the picture book. I started losing him near the end. See, when it turned into a lesson, he started losing focus. We must have said “J” (‘jay’) like five billion times. I think he knows ‘J’ by now. lol
He’s a kid. Kids just want to play. Our adult goals are different than a kid’s goal and we have to understand that. They don’t understand, “Oh I’m learning a foreign language.” It’s, “Oh I have to say this because it means this.”
Actually, in any human interaction, everyone’s goals and objectives and ways of thinking are different, so we can’t lose sight of this.
ANYWAY THESE CHILDREN WERE ADORABLE. <3 Yesterday was some of the most fun I've had with kids classes recently. I had a reasonable amount of energy to begin with and after him, had to jump right into negotiation situations with my adult student. :/ Booo lol Boring!