Small victory!

I had a small teaching victory today! To explain it all, I must give some background.

Each student in the school has a little book that goes home to the parents every night. The teachers must write every day how the child did listening, speaking, going to the washroom, etc. There are boxes to be checked, and spaces for comments. Everyday, the teachers must write positive comments about the child. I imagine it's hard to come up with new material for these students, since something must be written every day. It's like a report card that you must write every day. It's quite a lot of effort for the teachers, and they hate doing it.

Yesterday, I volunteered to do the comment portion for my morning class. Miss Guo was very excited, because it cut down on her work load, so that was nice. The space isn't too big, and I can fill it with English words. I was told earlier that if I write english comments to the parents, it will make them happier than anything. Also, the parents may not be able to read it anyway, so I didn't feel any pressure writing them.

I tried to mix it up and not write the same comments for all fourteen students. My comments were things like "Lily was very well behaved today, and is learning her facial features. Good Work Lily!" and "Sampson is a very happy student and is learning the first 7 letters of the alphabet."

We are in a unit called My Face, and I'm teaching words like Teeth, Hair, Ears, Nose, and Chin. In Chang-Chang's book, I wrote Chang-Chang is doing well answering "What is this?" with "It is my nose." Good Work Chang-Chang! He wasn't the best in the class, but rather fairly average.

Today, there was a response from Chang-Chang's parents, in English. It read "We played the game with Chang-Chang at home and are very happy with how many words he already knows. Thank you very much!" So, looks like they quizzed Chang-Chang like I quiz the kids in class...I point to a part of my face and I say "What is it?" and they must answer. I am working on getting them to answer in full sentences. Chang-Chang's parents did that last night, and Chang-Chang came through in the clutch! Excellent!

Now I feel like I actually taught something. It's nice to get some positive feedback. Looks like my new approach of primarily drilling vocab over and over is working, and getting good reviews from the parents. Or at least one set of parents.

So, that's the news. My first positive note from a parent!