Open Class

I had my open class last week. All native speakers have to have one (or possible two, no one tells me anything) open class a year. Other English teachers from the community can come and observe, and the whole thing is taped and sent to the providential Department of Education for review. It's kind of a big deal, and my co-teacher has been FREAKING OUT over it for about a month now, but it's over now and I've never been so relieved to have something done. (Just for the record, I wasn't nervous AT ALL until about thirty minutes before the class began when one of my little girls told me she was nervous [pantomimed a pounding heart] and realized, holy crap, so was I. And then class started and I was fine since I've completely gotten over any public speaking phobia in the past year.)

We taught what is possible the most precious group of fifth graders every. I don't think my love for these kids can be textually rendered. I tried, but I just ended up banging on the keyboard and making seal noises. Seriously, thought, so much love for these kids. <3333 They did amazing! We spent hours rehearsing the class and all the directions (which were mostly given in only English), and even though they had to be bored silly, they behaved beautifully. Then on the day of the class, they managed to be enthusiastic about everything, even though they had seen it all before. We did a listening activity (which we didn't rehearse at all), sang the Beatles (the kids might have been out of tune, but they made up for it by dancing about) and played two games. I even let them toss a ball around the classroom during the greeting and they TOSSED the ball instead of trying to take out their classmates with it. They got all the answers right, we had a plethora of students raising their hands in class (that NEVER happens!) and they were all around great!

*squishes students*