Otra semana movidita

Things continue to move along.

I told Cosmo the other day, I think that the key to appreciating Honduras is to embrace uncertainty. I make lists and lesson plans and I leave myself time, but some days life just has other ideas for you.

--This is for my mom - I have begun my own Super Scoops for the elementary school class -- I call it the PARTY JAR. Right now the kids have earned about 3 percent of the dry beans they need to fill the jar and win an English Party. Good stuff. -- Another idea I´ve implemented, upon noticing that the kids often only get attention when they act out in a bad way, is that I´ve created a Super Wall to put up the artwork, tests, and accomplishments of the kids. All of them really need positive reinforcement in their lives, something which the previous tutoring staff at Copprome has been kind of sort of okay about.

I have a general format worked out for the classes - For the elementary school kids, I put on a song in English for about 2 minutes as they kids are rustling and shuffling and fighting and by the time the song stops they are ready. Then I do a review, a bonus question for the kids who are ahead of the curve (which they can work on when they finish early), a lesson, a dialogue, some hands on activity (bingo was a big hit), then a review.

For the high school kids, I enlist one of them to find the other ones and get them all in the same place (about 15 minutes). Then I write a quote (example: ¨Dialogue cannot exist without humility.¨ - Paulo Freire). Then they translate it. Then I do a grammar lesson, a dialogue, and a fill in the blanks. Then I put on a song in English using the grammatical structure we just studied and have them copy down the applicable part of the song (example: the other day we did contractions and listened to Jorge Drexler sing ¨Don´t leave me high, Don´t leave me dry...¨)

The kindergarten kids are fun - I love working with pre-literate kids because they trust their ears a lot more. There´s a lot of Gouin series work here, a la Professor Arries, and a lot of art projects. I´m trying to get the Copprome staff to read them books more, because they are an amazingly rapt audience when a story is being read.

The English class for the staff is coming along, but they´re always busy busy busy. It´ll be a cool way to build a working relationship with them, though.

On the administrative side of things, we´ve installed the computer lab and we will have internet access there today. I worked together with the staff to create rules for the computer lab, so that we can be fair and consistent and hopefully these computers won´t be destroyed by this time next week.

I´ve been very tired this week. I need to get better at delegating. I´m going to meet with Pati and Mary and the other staff in a few minutes to try to better define their tasks so that they can just roll with it and don´t have to check in with me. It´s amazing what people are capable of doing when they are given agency over a project outcome.

Grego´s flying in tomorrow in the morning (which with TACA airlines means some time before Sunday). I´ve got loads of work ready for him with the Sp. Ed kids... mwahaha.