Teaching Days in May

I came to this session of the Global Volunteers programs because originally only two persons had registered. There must be three on a team to make it an official. The first two were wondering if they should make their plane reservations or not, so I registered to settle the question. By the time I got here we had 5 volunteers, and I thought, "Oh, I could have saved my time for something else and money for something else."  Then on Tuesday I saw the smiling faces of my fourth grade class and immediately became very happy that I was here.

In the morning I'm at the Cisie School. This is the fourth time I have taught at Cisie.

If I remember correctly this school this year has 94 students. Some live in Cisie and some in nearby villages or on nearby farms.

Their English  teacher wanted me to work on adjectives associated with a lesson in their text book, so I have done that. In addition we have played Shapes and Color Bingo and of course danced the Hokey-Pokey. I use Hokey-Pokey to teach vocabulary for body parts, and of course, use Bingo or Jingo games for the same reason -- teaching vocabulary and prounciation.

In today's lesson I asked my students to spell their name with the English alphabet, explaining first this is a necessary skill for travel or conversation with visitors to Poland. Then I had them put together puzzles and the list 15 things they saw in the puzzle. This is a much more fun way to teach vocabulary, and I can do gentle corrections on how words are spelled or explain how to change a word from singular to plural.

In the afternoon I teach a class at the library/community center is nearby Kotun.

Officially I have 18 students, but only on the first day did that many come. Usually this group meets only once per week and so the children have other activities already planned for other days of the week.The photo below was taken before we started any activity.

Yesterday I checked their pronunciation of the English alphabet. Then we played Halloween JINGO. It's not that I care that much about Halloween; simply all the other JINGO games were being used in other places. They had fun learning new words like ghost, pumpkin, and jack-o-lantern. We finished with Hokey-Pokey and Head and Shoulders. With the latter they kept saying,"Go faster!"

Another volunteer is with me at the Community Center; her group are adult women who wish to learn English.  Two other volunteers go into Siedlce and do after school sessions for middle school and high school students there. 

Then each early evening, after a busy day, we gather at 6:00 in the  Reymontowka bar for "debriefing!"  That is followed by an evening meal at 7:00. After that we do our final preparations for the next morning's classes.

We are having a great time here in Poland and at Reymontowka.