You haven't lived until you've played Pictionary with adult ESL students. I'm never sure what students will get into, but boy. This group went crazy for this game. There was a lot of yelling and laughter today.
I find that I am admiring the sense of community that the Arabic students embody. It's Monday? Let's gather and have cookies and coffee. Someone returned to school after being absent with the flu? Let's have red velvet cake and coffee. Always with the gathering. Always with the conversations. The edges of my class are becoming fluid~one doesn't just begin lecturing/assignments when the clock hits the hour. One must spend a few moments in conversation and then! Vocab may commence.
And the snow hasn't hit, so music classes are still on for tonight. Whew.
The conversations are SO MUCH a part of the teaching anyway - and, with a mouthful of sweet, hesitant speakers are distracted and vocabulary flows. I think it sounds fabulous to meet and eat. Creating community must be a deliberate act in these situations. Even as I grouse about our chamber group, I watch in amusement - we have myriad second-language English speakers who have jumped in to help bring cookies and tea each night. (I'd say a third of our group international - a Nordic/Germanic woman, several Mandarin speakers, an Arabic gentleman, etc.). We are challenged, as they drag the rest of us - well, some of the less curmudgeonly of us, anyway - into opportunities for speaking, so that their vocabulary expands.
ReplyDeleteYes~often I think it sounds like a lot of birds chirping & chattering away.
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