Alphabet Game: My name is Alice.. and I come from..

The House Mothers at SOS Village (as well as the children) had fun with this game! "My name is Alice and I come from Australia where I sell apples." And then it was on to each subsequent letter of the alphabet as the ball got tossed to a new player and they then too had to keeping bouncing the ball as they found the words to fill in the blanks!

Telling Time... lots of practice helps!

All grade levels, plus the House Mothers, wanted to learn how to tell time in English. I spent a lot of time in direct instruction, plus modeling how to tell time. The visual on the board helped.



Next I developed a worksheet that required the students to not only write in the face of the clock, but to also put the hands in the correct locations, based on the directions I'd given them.



To check for understanding, once the students had finished their worksheet in class, I had students come up to the white board and draw in the hands for each of the time telling problems I'd given them.

From my own experience of trying to learn other languages, I found telling time to be one of the most challenging. These students did a superb job learning to tell time!

This is the way we wash our face .....

The songs were a big hit with the students and House Mothers too! This song was really fantastic, since it taught so many action words!



"This is the way we wash our face, wash our face, wash our face. This is the way we wash our face, early in the morning!"

Other action words included: clean our hands, brush our teeth, comb our hair, eat our food, wash our clothes, walk to school, open our book, etc., etc., etc. The hand movements with each verse was the part that clinched the song as one of the favorite for the week.

Having a "ball" with the House Mothers!

Everyday, the House Mothers would meet with me from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. to learn and practice conversational English. From talking with these Mothers, I came to understand the incredible responsibility of each Mother as they take care of children from infant to teens all the while managing some very large households!



Fun was a big part of our "conversational" English classes. Here Mothers touch their nose with their left hand, as they would toss brightly colored green, red, blue, yellow and gold balls ... based on my calling out a certain color!



The one finger on the nose was too easy..... so I added having them balance on one foot! Talk about concentration as they waited to hear which color I'd call out so they could toss the ball!




On the first day of class, I asked the mothers what they wanted me to teach them.... "Teach us how to talk with a guest who comes to SOS Village" they all said.



Based on the Mother's request, I wrote out a roll play between a Mother and a guest from another country. The Mothers copied the roll play in their book. I taught them the roll play, paying particular attention to their pronunciation of key words. I practiced the roll play with them throughout the week, and then had two Mothers do the roll play in front of the class.



Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake, Baker's Man.... Bake me a cake as fast as you can.... Just as I taught this to the children .... I also taught it to the Mothers. First the words to the nursery rhyme, then as a whole class, the hand movements...






Then sitting across from each other.... the real thing! Pat-a-cake, Pat-a-cake!



At the end of the week, Sonny, a Family Services Counselor commented to me that the House Mothers had enjoyed their week with me, learning English.

As for my teaching style...., personally I think I had the Mothers laughing so much, they did not even realize they were in class .... learning English!

Fun Conversations at SOS Teen House

"Mama YaYa," her 12th grade girls, and Mr. T.... These 12th graders will be moving out of the SOS teen girl's house in Denpasar in July so they can continue their education at the university.



I brought along a few bags with the cut out alphabet which turned into a great manipulative to use with these teens.



With the letters all laid out on the floor, I gave each teen a long word, such as Denpasar or California. They were then to first spell this word using the cut out letters. Then... they were to build as many words off this one word as they could.




To build their words, I gave the teens about ten minutes. Then the real fun began with this exercise.



Such a serious ... at this point these students did not know what I was going to ask them to do!





After they had built as many words onto the root word in that 10 minute period...



I then asked them to tell a story, in English of course! But it was I who gave them a character around which to base their story!





The first go around, for one teen their character was an elephant, another a monkey and yet another a snake!



As the story was being told, one of the teens was asked to face away from the group and only listen to story. Once the story was finished, the teen with their back to the group had to retell it!



The retelling was based totally on auditory recall... and these young ladies did terrific jobs!



YaYa became the "Mother" of this SOS teen girl's house in Denpasar about a month ago. Looking at her face, as well as the faces of the girls ... this is a perfect arrangement!