Tuesday, June 9, 2009

A break from teaching

The past couple of days have been "free days" I guess, Sunday there was no school, and Monday was a holiday so there wasnt school either....And then today a local engineer came to show me around different parts of Guwahati. While it is nice to explore the city, I really missed my kiddies for the past couple of days. I cant wait to get back to work tomorrow. I have a new lesson for the 1st-4th graders :). We are paying special attention to the computer skills of the 8th and 9th graders so I will be busy preparing computer lessons for them to complete in the afternoon after school!! It excites me how much they have learned from the first lesson I taught. When I watch them on the computers I see them using all the shortcuts and formatting tools to make different types of documents. The boys are also speaking to me more, I told them today that they didnt have to call me Ma'am....that they could call me Kelly (which is the name that they call me because my first name is very difficult for them to say). They were happy to hear that, I feel like we are too close in age for them to call me ma'am.
I am planning some artwork for the hostel children to do for the rest of the week as well as preparing grammar posters to put in the classrooms for the middle school and highschool students. I believe that these will help the students as they are learning English, and colorful posters will also bring light to the classrooms!!! The half-yearly exams are coming soon for the students and grammatical reminders posted in the classrooms will help them in their studies. I am slowly trying to introduce the children to the American way of teaching English, remembering sklls that my elementary school teachers taught me in order to instill these things in my memory. It is hard to teach English to the children when they do not understand me so I try my best to break it down to them with symbols, pictures, role play, WHATEVER, lol and then I can ask them in Assamese "Do you understand," once I get the reassuring head nods, I know that a method has worked.
Today I visited Kalakshetra cultural center in Guwahati with the engineer, Promona and Uttam. It was a beauriful place full of Northeastern Indian culture. There were museums and art galleries with amazing artwork. Afterwards, we went to a very nice Chinese restaurant in the more wealthy part of the city. The food was amazing and the service was out of this world. I had a really good time learning about the culture of India and exploring new parts of the city. Now I have new places in mind when I want to venture out on my own.
The other night there was a full moon with not a cloud in the sky. I was amazed, I am constantly amazed at the scenery here. There are always stars in the sky when the skies are clear, I can see the sagitarrius constellation as well the scorpio and the great bear. Its so cool. For the past couple of days, there have been huge storks flying over Uttams home. Uttam has explained to me that there will be a lot of different species of birds migrating here because of the upcoming monsoon season. I have to keep my camera ready because I have neer seen things like this in my life. I am sure my brother (Mr. National Geographic himself) will apreciate all of the pictures.
TIme for dinner now, will post again soon!!

1 comment:

  1. Kudos for all the good work you are doing..

    May be visitors like me would have loved to know more about you... where you are from etc.. in your blog profile.

    Best wishes!

    ReplyDelete