Wow! The past two days have been a bit crazy. I was worried I wouldn't have enough to do here. Trying to come up with lessons takes a lot longer than I thought it would!
Yesterday, I got to go to Padina's outdoor market for the first time. Seeing the market really made this little town come alive. There was an abundance of potatoes, lettuce, apples, oranges and many other veggies. In addition to fruit, you could pick up a new pair of jeans, a kitchen utensil, and even some toilet paper! The market is about the same size as Lancaster Central Market - but outside. The market is every Thursday so I am looking forward to going next week.
I really wish I had brought my camera. Taking pictures of the town would not give you a good idea of Padina - you need to see the people. But since this isn't a famous tourist market in a big city, I'm not sure if it is appropriate to take pictures. Some one was selling ducklings. I never realized how precious baby ducks are! They are such darling little things - not like my sister's parrot (who is known to attack the cats)! The funniest thing I saw was a turkey sitting in a trunk (hatch-back) in a cardboard box. He was just sitting in the box and looking around like that was where he belonged.
I had four classes yesterday. Two with kids/teens in Padina, one with the adults in Padina, and one with the kids in Kovacicia. Today, I had three classes, all in Padina.
Because the kids were so hyper on Wednesday, I needed to do something that would get them out of their seats. I decided to teach the parts of the body so that we could do the hokey pokey and "head, shoulders, knees, and toes." That song really works great with memorization. They giggled every time I said "hokey pokey" and had fun with the dance. I'm not sure if it helped them remember body parts, but at least it helped them release some energy. The group of teens is funny. If they are with the little kids, they are too "cool" to do the songs. If they are by themselves, the laugh just like the little kids and do the dances anyway. I had new students in both classes - the class seems to grow each day!
Today I continues with the "body" theme and covered the 5 senses. This way, I could teach them the verbs, see, hear, taste, touch, and smell but also have fun. Plus, it gave me a chance to review the body parts. They really like "to hear" because I played different animal sounds on my laptop and have them guess the animals. (They had to respond by saying "I hear a pig with my ears." We also did "taste" with chocolate which they also liked. For the past two days, I have been giving them word searches and crossword puzzles with the new vocab words. They really seem to like doing them and it (hopefully) helps them remember the words. They want to meet again tomorrow! I'm not creative so I am quickly running out of ideas. Once their Easter break is over, I think we will only meet twice a week. If you have any ideas for ESL activities with kids, please let me know!
The adults in my class covered alot of information in the past few nights, so tonight was a review. So far, they have learned greetings, numbers, the verb 'to be,' forming questions and negatives, a/an, my/your/his/her/our/their, and hopefully a few words. They seem to be doing well. I gave them a homework assignment two nights ago and they were happy to have something to work on at home. They also like having worksheets in addition to taking notes, so more work to do! The most difficult thing is when a new person comes because they missed all the previous lessons. Oh well. I am going to meet with that lady one-on-one tomorrow. I will be meeting with the adults whenever they are available. Many have jobs in Belgrade during the week so in addition to having kids, it's much more difficult to have a set time.
I really enjoy working with the adults in my class so I was really devastated to hear that a fire destroyed the barn of the one couple. I will be posting more about the fire over the weekend, so please visit my blog again in a few days!
I should be preparing for the lessons tomorrow, but I am exhausted! Goodnight!
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