'Isla
Marcie reporting:
The only time I feel alive is when I am teaching English. my native language to Palestinian students. (Otherwise the abhorrent racism of this country - as evidenced by the recent election - kills me.)
Anyway. we arrived in the village to be greeted by a group of enthusiastic students. I taught the older students, 7 in number, while Miki taught the younger ones. As this was my first encounter with these children and I did not know their reading level, I brought material with me for teaching the sh sound which it turns out the students already knew. We read a short story containing multiple examples of this sound and played a memory game with sh words and the students responded full-heartedly. Then we collectivelyםאתread the Dr. Seuss story Green Eggs and Ham passing the book from hand to hand. I thought that the children could tell from the illustrations that this was a humorous story, but although everyone could decipher the words, no one laughed. Oh well, the students still had a good time (and so did I). The session was rounded off by an English sing-along with Miki and her guitar - "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," "Row, row, row your boat" and a few other well-known standbys.
Miki reporting:
Arriving at the kindergarten, the children were already waiting and ran to give us a warm welcome. Marcie worked with the bigger ones (below, her report), and I with three girls from the 3rd grade and N.’s 5-year old son. We worked on various words according to the ABC and played “Snakes and Ladders” with large and small letters. I taught them songs and we sang with the guitar. N. joined us a bit later, and entered the older group to help keep them in line.
As last time, at the end of class we had the two groups meet in the large room for joint singing in English with the guitar. Marcie’s pupils received colored spectacles as a prize for their reading and they were happy. Luckily she had a few extra pairs and gave them to the younger children as well.