I will attempt to be better at blogging this year and do this weekly.
Here we go again!!! This is the end of the first week of school and I survived!!! I say survived because this year I will be teaching first grade to local Arabic girls. While I am extremely excited about it, it is also extremely tiring and comical! Oh, and learning will happen eventually ;-)
The first day seemed relatively normal. Well, normal for here anyway. The girls came to school and we met all first graders in the gym and played games. Because we all know school needs to be fun! After playing games and trying to put name tags on girls, we were dismissed to our class. I only had 1 girl cry and she spoke NO English and was animatedly telling me why she was crying. Of course, it was ALL in Arabic. The only word I understood was "mama". I gathered she wanted to go home and told her it would be ok. Fast forward to Thursday with this little girl and she has withdrawn and will be going to another school.
Teaching English to first grade Arabic girls who may or may not have gone to KG1 or KG2 is a lot like playing charades ALL day long!! Extremely tiresome!!! However, I do love the curriculum and can't wait for this week to begin.
So far, I will be teaching 1A and 1B. These 2 classes are about as different as night and day. While 1B knows all the letters of the alphabet and numbers to 30 and know a decent amount of English to communicate with me, 1A is quite the opposite. 1A knows a limited number of letters, numbers to 20 and most can barely write their name. This will be challenging when writing lesson plans and attempting to keep up with the curriculum that ADEC is insistent on these girls learning. However, I am up for the challenge and can't wait until all routines and procedures are in place and the girls are comfortable with them. That is when learning happens more efficiently!
Until next week...
Here we go again!!! This is the end of the first week of school and I survived!!! I say survived because this year I will be teaching first grade to local Arabic girls. While I am extremely excited about it, it is also extremely tiring and comical! Oh, and learning will happen eventually ;-)
The first day seemed relatively normal. Well, normal for here anyway. The girls came to school and we met all first graders in the gym and played games. Because we all know school needs to be fun! After playing games and trying to put name tags on girls, we were dismissed to our class. I only had 1 girl cry and she spoke NO English and was animatedly telling me why she was crying. Of course, it was ALL in Arabic. The only word I understood was "mama". I gathered she wanted to go home and told her it would be ok. Fast forward to Thursday with this little girl and she has withdrawn and will be going to another school.
Teaching English to first grade Arabic girls who may or may not have gone to KG1 or KG2 is a lot like playing charades ALL day long!! Extremely tiresome!!! However, I do love the curriculum and can't wait for this week to begin.
So far, I will be teaching 1A and 1B. These 2 classes are about as different as night and day. While 1B knows all the letters of the alphabet and numbers to 30 and know a decent amount of English to communicate with me, 1A is quite the opposite. 1A knows a limited number of letters, numbers to 20 and most can barely write their name. This will be challenging when writing lesson plans and attempting to keep up with the curriculum that ADEC is insistent on these girls learning. However, I am up for the challenge and can't wait until all routines and procedures are in place and the girls are comfortable with them. That is when learning happens more efficiently!
Until next week...
Hi! Sounds like fun. I came across your blog as I'm researching teaching in Abu Dhabi as well! How much experience in grade 1 did you have before you applied to teach overseas?
ReplyDeleteHi Andrea,
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn’t know how else to contact you!
Firstly, great blog and keep up the good work!
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Thanks Again
Charles Leahy
charlesleahy@gmail.com
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Good post.
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