All About You EDU

All About You EDU

Written on 5/13/2015

After months of having a tough time trying to get my students excited about English, I think I've finally figured out a central part of what gets my students excited about learning...making it about them.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of exercises where the students have to answer questions about their life. And they've reacted with honest excitement to have the opportunity to talk about themselves. Many times, I've noticed, they sit and take notes about topics that don't seem relevant to their lives. They aren't often asked about themselves. I gave them the opportunity to speak about themselves, and they accepted the challenge of having to do it in English quite enthusiastically.

And when the time came where the information presented wasn't about them - in a reading comprehension activity about someone else's family - I saw more hands raised and received more correct answers than in previous reading comprehension activities. It may be that my Malagasy has gotten better, or that they are getting used to my teaching techniques after almost 9 months of having me as their teacher. But, I'd like to think a big part of it is that they were at least marginally excited about English. And regardless of the reason, my students are learning and that's what I'm here to do!

My topics have been easy to organize into student-focused lessons lately, being about the home and family. But it got me thinking - how could I make my other lessons throughout the year more about my students? Grammar lessons are especially difficult, and I find my students often loose focus quickly when presented with lessons heavy in grammar. But, if I could find a way to make the grammar about them?

Easier said then done for some lessons, but it got me thinking more about student-centered teaching and what that really means. Its not just getting the students involved, its about making the education about the students. A Ted Talk (I know I'm all about Ted Talks lately, I downloaded a few Ted Talk: Education podcasts when I had WIFI) by Christopher Emdin: Teach teachers how to create magic, Emdin said that a teachers job is not to teach; a teachers job is to facilitate learning. Your job isn't fulfilled if you merely stand in front of your students and throw information at them. Your job is fulfilled if they understand the information, and can apply it to their lives, and use it again in the future.

I'm hoping to keep my students excited about learning!

What's in YOUR dream house?

Draw Your Dream House!

Written on 5/5/2015

Last week, while I was sick at home planning my upcoming lessons, I watched a few TED Talks on Education. One really stood out - Ken Robinson's: How to escape education's death valley. It reminded me that teachers need to do more than just teach. They need to facilitate learning. They need to inspire students to reach beyond the limits of the classroom. They need to spark imagination, interest, and curiosity.

But how do I do that teaching English? I looked at my next lesson, Furniture in the Home. I new I needed to learn vocabulary, and I knew drawing pictures on the board would be the best way to do this. And it hit me, drawing pictures! The students at the center LOVE to draw, but often they copy from books or magazines. They are never asked to be creative.

So, I decided to create an exercise asking students to draw their home. In my first class, some students raised their hand and said, "but I don't have this furniture in my house..what do I draw?" I told them to draw the house they want to live in when they are grown up, and I saw the whole classes eyes glow with creativity.

Soon erasers dust was flying across the classroom as students were erasing the homes they live in now and imaging the homes they want to live in when they grow up. They said, "Can my house be a house in another country?" OF COURSE IT CAN! I smiled. I told them they can live in a house with whatever they want and where ever they want. But first, you have to study well and work hard.

Suddenly my most uninterested students were asking what a vase, stereo system, sink, picture frame, and many other things were in English. Although it started to get a bit materialistic, it was a great creative, imaginative, exercise to bring energy back into my classroom and spark a bit an interest in English again.

Because I think that when you ask students to create something for themselves, not only do they get to be creative, but they start learning words in their own way. They were imagining sofas, and lamps, and televisions while they were writing the words on paper.

It was an exciting lesson for my students, and an enlightening lesson for myself. And we all left with smiles on our faces. 

Pink Eye...Its EVERYWHERE

Pink Eye...its everywhere.

Written on 5/5/2015

It started with a few students coming into class with swollen, red, itchy eyes...and suddenly it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

I urged my students to stay home if they were sick. I told them to wash their hands and faces. To not touch their eyes. And a student yelled out (in Malagasy) "But it comes from the wind!" and still I saw students with extrememly red puffy eyes coming into class, and it was spreading through the classes and town like wild fire.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by pink eye. I started sending students home and washing my hands obsessively. Then, I went to get juice for the Center's Sunday Afternoon Juice and Talk. The young woman who sells juice greeted me with sunglasses covering very puffy eyes....

A few hours later...my eye started to itch. I felt it start to swell, and soon, it was red and extremely swollen. I had caught pink eye.

Trying to set a good example, I didn't go back to school until I was pink-eye free. I didn't shake anyone's hands. I used the medicine the doctors told me to use. It was a week of boredom, and feeling extremely guilty for not teaching my students, but I am finally pink-eye free!

Most notably, I realized why students were coming to school with pink eye. Its hard to miss a week of class, especially when you aren't feeling really sick, you just have an itchy eye. My students are a little bit behind because I was sick, and if they missed a week, that is many missed lessons!

Once you get pink eye, the medicine, which can cost the same amount as a few days of work for some, was not being used. Many people were washing their eyes with soap, putting honey in their eyes, or attempting to cure their eyes with lemon juice. Although I read some articles that these home-remedies can work, they aren't 100% affected and with watered down, and possibly unclean honey, very acidic lemons, and water that isn't always the cleanest for washing, these remedies could do more harm than hurt.

Pink eye is still everywhere, and I can't help but question how it will ever leave the area with more and more students getting sick. I keep urging my students to wash their hands and I hope they will stay at home if they wake up with red, itchy eyes. I've sent kids home from school and told them to wait until they get better.

For now, I'm just obsessively washing my hands and face...there is no way I'm getting pink eye again! It's interesting to see how something that we pass by as a simple illness that can be avoided by good hygiene and treated by eye drops and a few days away from school or work, can quickly spread through a community.

It shows just how important education about hygiene is! And reminded me that I really need to go talk to the Elementary School by my house about educating their students on how to use the new latrine WASH (an NGO) recently built on their school grounds. A little bit of good hygiene can lead to a long, healthy life!

UPDATE: (as of 5/14/2015): Pink eye is a little bit less noticeable in schools but I've heard its making its way up the coast and to different parts of the island. Also, I've noticed the students at the Elementary school have been using their latrine. I mentioned something to the adjunct director at my school and he said he talked to her and now its open! Could have been coincidental, but still good to see kids learning healthy habits!