Look, you're really cute, but I can't understand what you're saying

Today was my last day of English Camp! The goal of the 5th & 6th grade camp was reading and eh, we did read every day, but I just don't feel comfortable teaching reading. I know that I learned how to read at a very early age and that I haven't stopped since, but I don't really know how to teach someone else how to do it. You look at the page and read the words and then - voilà! - comprehension, knowledge, enlightenment. I can't even begin to figure out how to teach reading comprehension and when you take a kid who perhaps doesn't have the strongest reading skills to begin with and add a whole new language, you get a quagmire. Combine that with students who would. not. look up a word unless I beat them over the head with a dictionary, and by the end of the week I was ready to throw my hands up. We did read a story every day, but we mostly played a bunch of games and watched Finding Nemo.

I justified Finding Nemo by watching it in English (with Korean subtitles) and giving the kids a worksheet asking them question about the movie, even if I did have to prompt them on most of the questions. (Me: What's that? Kids: It's whale! Me: Look at question 10. [Name 10 animals that live in the ocean.] Kids: Oh yes Teacher!) My students loved it, as did every other student in the library, including those working with a tutor and complaining about how they wanted to go to English Camp. Whoops. Had I known English Camp would be held in the library before the day it started, I probably wouldn't have chosen to show a movie, but I wasn't about to rearrange my entire lesson plan once camp started and I was spending every moment trying to get ready. I did think this line was particularly apt:



Same, Same