Today was another good day. Long. Very long. But good. However, I will say that I have developed a perpetual headache.

I did get a few unexpected and much needed breaks today. After both lunch and dinner, I had about 30 minutes to myself. Beautiful. At that time, the kids are allowed to go back to their room. A few of us teachers have found the girls sauna locker room our greatest luxury. There are several lounge chairs in a resting room that we have taken over during our breaks. It’s the only quiet place that kids haven’t discovered yet. Hopefully they won’t any time soon.

Today had a lot of comical moments for me. The first one came as early as breakfast. Just picture 2 things with me.
1. 6 young cute Asian girls sipping cups of hot tea around the table for breakfast. Sooooo stereotypically Asian. That’s my kind of girls 😛
2. Picture an adorable, sweet, very chubby Asian boy. Holding a small bowl filled with rice in one hand close to his mouth, and using chopsticks with the other hand, to shovel food into his near-by mouth as quickly as possible. Hahaha. I almost laughed out loud. It was so cute. And his name is Jim, which makes the whole thing even cuter for some reason.

So, I think I already mentioned that I LOVE my students. Let me explain to you their level of english as of this morning.
Example 1- Q: “Jerry, how old are you?” A: “Um, my name is Jerry.”
Example 2- Breakfast this morning. A kid waving one chopstick in the air and grunting. I walk over. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask. More grunting. Some pointing also. Several other kids have gathered around trying to help explain to me with more grunts and points. Quickly, I realize they’re trying to tell me that Harvey dropped his chopstick on the ground. (They all have american names which is so cute… Most popular – Jenny, Tim, Evan, Johnny). So anyway. I hold up chopsticks and ask “What are these called?” No one can tell me. I hold up my nametag (everyone gets to make their own nametag using clay on Day 1) and ask “What is this called?” … 5 people can answer me. ‘Nametag’. I make them repeat it several times.

The funniest to me was the grunter. Poor guy. I hadn’t heard him say any words other than ‘thank you’ and ‘your welcome’. And ‘Teacher’. He’ll say ‘Teacher,’ and then start pointing and grunting. ‘Uh Uhhh Uh Uhh Uh Uh Uhhh.’

So… needless to say, it’s a challenge for sure. They’re not allowed to speak any Chinese here. Even if they have legitimate questions. Which is really hard sometimes, because I KNOW they don’t understand any of the important announcements that the Camp Director makes.

But, I will say, this is one of those challenges that I actually love. And it IS a challenge. But it allows me to be creative. Creative in how I have to express myself to them in order to be understood, and creative in how I can teach and get them to learn. I like that. I need a challenge that I have a little control over.

Today, after all the grunting, I scrapped the ESL lesson in our provided book (which was WAY too hard for my students) and added a ‘supplement’. Aka. We learned some basic vocabulary for things we need at camp. Partly because they need to know, but partly because the directors/leaders always make all these announcements, like “You’ll lose 5 beads if you don’t have your nametag!” and such but my kids don’t understand a word.
Name tag.
Beads.
Chopsticks.
Bowl.
Cup.
Water.
Bathroom.
Bag.
Room.
Key.
Upstairs.
Downstairs.
You get my point… We put the words in useful phrases… like “My room is upstairs”. And “My money is in my room upstairs.” Or “I need water.” We also played some short quick games to make sure they all understood. I think they did. Not only do kids learn fast, but they learn even faster when it’s relative stuff that they’ll actually use.

After learning basic words they’ll need for this week, I switched our book for the lowest level book that the camp has. Which was WAY more appropriate. We learned a few more things. “Where are you from?” “Where do you live?” “How are you today?” and “How old are you?”

Here’s my favorite story of the day:

There’s a cute little girl in my class named May. On the first day, I gave all the students an unofficial oral test, to help determine their english level. I remember asking her. And for everything I asked, she said “My name is May.” or “I’m May”. It was really cute. But I realized she didn’t knwo how to say much more.

So, today, after learning how to say things like “My room is upstairs” and “How old are you? I am 11 years old”, May and I both ended up in the elevator during the break after dinner. I said, “Hi May”. And she said “Hi. My room.” And I said, “Oh, which room are you?” (Using my voice to accentuate the question word along with the motion you make with your hands/shoulders when you sometimes ask a question) And she said, “Oh, I am 9 years old.” I smiled and realized that in her mind she must have heard something like “Question? …. are you? Must be how old are you?”

Awwwwwww. It was sooooooo cute. Because, well, at least she was practicing what she had learned. Now, she can say not only “My name is May” but also “I am 9 years old.” Even though it wasn’t exactly the right context, I think that’s progress. 😛 So cute.

Tomorrow is already Day 3. Out of 6. It’s flying by.