Bee Zway Kind of Day.

I woke up with a headache today, which is never a good start for a Monday because on Mondays I see my lower level grade 11's (11-11) THREE times in the day. By third period, they are ready to crucify me. Today is also the day when my grade 11's give their speeches on any random topic they have been researching for two weeks. ESL speeches... all I could think was, "this is going to be either very painful or very hilarious."

So my headache and I tossled our way toward the 11-11 classroom, ready for warfare. I had my students write down one question for each presenter so that they wouldn't fall asleep, and I am sitting here reviewing the questions, giggling, because so many of them just wrote, "what are you saying?" on the presenter's feedback page. It's not really funny in the grande scheme of things, I mean, they should understand english by now. On the other hand, it is secretly really funny that that was the question they chose to ask the presenter. Hah!

In the second period, I tried to teach my students how to identify the main idea in a paragraph. Helen asks, "What is a mammal?" "Uhhh....heh...animals and people...who...have...(muffled) sex....(giggles--they understand THAT word,of course)...and have babies without eggs." Helen just looked at me and flared her nostrils because she had a nose bleed in one and needed to readjust the wad of toilet paper in her one nostril. These people do wierd things in public. I admire it.

My favourite part of the class was when James left for the bathroom and someone mentioned that he was going to smoke in the toilet (they do that here, it is really gross). When James returned, I made somewhat of a spectacle of him by asking him to come closer so I could smell the smoke on him. He laughed and let me, and then smelled me back. Clever. I like these kids. They drive me INSANE! But for ESL students, I ask a lot of them, and at least they always try. Plus, when I yell at them to shut up (bee zway)in Chinese, they actually listen. I love my job.

xox