Kids Say the Darndest Things...

When we first started teaching this year, it seemed an almost insurmountable task- everything had to be coupled by gestures because the kids couldn't understand a word we said beyond "Hello" and "What is your name?"  It's one thing to expect that in an English lesson, but what do you do when you have to work with 5-year-olds 7 hours a day, and those are the only phrases you're sure they understand? 

Things have gotten easier (for the most part) since then, though, and their language skills have snowballed.  Those moments that make us realize "Woah- they really are learning," are happening more and more often.  Now 3-5 months later (depending on the student), they understand most of what we say and ask about the words they don't understand.  They speak to us in complete sentences, unprompted, telling us stories, making jokes (kindergarten jokes), and quite often tattling on one another!  We've even overheard them speaking to each other in English on occasion, like asking "Can I have a napkin, please?" at lunch.  They're picking up on words/phrases we say a lot.  It cracks me up every time I hear Farida say "Goodness gracious," and Colleen definitely taught them to say "awesome."

One day, during a 10 minute play-break between lessons, I heard Farida say "I'm a policeman!"  When I turned around, this is what I saw:

 

After I took the picture I made her get off of him! :)

Along with these new language skills come all the usual kid conversations- those childhood observations of the world that are sometimes right on the money and sometimes hilariously strange.

Today was full of such conversations!  Since Novruz is this week (a holiday celebrating spring) we took spring as our topic.  We made flowers out of clay and winter trees to which we then added leaves, and one of the twins informed me that the tree's roots (I had to teach him that word) held onto the earth, because trees don't walk around like men.  In our English lesson we learned the names of baby animals like puppies, kittens, chicks, and ducklings.  We spent a little time talking about the each of the animals.  When we got to kangaroos and how their babies are called joeys, this conversation happened:

Me: Where do joeys live?
Nasreddin: In their mommy's... teacher, what is this? (points to the pocket on his jeans) 
Me: Pocket.
N: Our pockets on the side, but kangaroo's pocket on the front.
Me: Yes
N: And kangaroo's pocket is big
Me: That's right, because she carries her baby there.  Do we put our babies in our pockets?
N: No, we put them in a house.

At which point I looked at Colleen and wondered why we never catch such moments (which are so much funnier with their hand motions and expressions) on video.  So here's a video from a little later on, talking about ducklings.  Not a particularly funny conversation, and they're not talking quite as much as they had been, but you can still get an idea of how they communicate.



(UPDATE (3/22): The conversation continued with them deciding that that's why the teacher always goes first, too- because she knows where we are going.  The next day, Nasreddin was the line leader and he told Colleen- "Teacher, say where we going and I put them there.")

In Colleen's science lesson, they learned how plants grow, starting from a seed, and how they need water, dirt, and the sun.  It took them a minute to wrap their heads around the idea that the dirt is the flower's food.  Arslan asked if dirt is yummy and Muhammed pictured the roots grabbing dirt like a hand and shoving it in the flower's mouth!

It's nice to see the results of our work.  To know that as much as we've messed up (and it's been a lot), they are still learning and growing by leaps and bounds.  Plus, those results sometimes have us crying with laughter.  That helps too!