Today was our first day teaching English at GASA!! Kristina, Meghan, and Anna are all teaching
Level 1 ESL to GASA Students. Courtney,
JB, and Camila are teaching Level 2 ESL.
And Annika, Abisola, and Sharlene are teaching Level 3 ESL. We spent most of the night last night working
on our lesson plans and preparing ourselves for our first day of teaching! We learned quickly that no matter how much
you plan, you have to be open to last minute changes- this happened often the
first day! We still had a BLAST! The first day we did greetings and
introductions. One of the best ways to
introduce everyone in the class was to do the greeting song. This turned into a big joke and we got
everyone laughing by the end of it. “My
name is Wawa, Wawa, Wawa, my name is Wawa, who am I?”
Throughout
our session we were able to notice differing styles in learning and teaching in
the classroom. We tried to incorporate a
lot of techniques such as songs, games, and partner work to help the students
retain new English vocabulary and phrases.
Before we started teaching, we heard that most schools and teachers in
Haiti do not engage in interactive activities in the classroom. Most of the time ‘learning’ in these schools
is through memorization. While we were
trying to initiate interactive activities, we saw that many students were
hesitant to engage in these activities at first. But once we broke the ice, and got them
laughing (at us!) they were more open.
By the end of the day they were clapping, singing, and being silly with
us!!
One of the
best moments was at the end of the lesson, we asked that Haitian students to
share a song, dance, etc that represents their culture. While the Haitian students were very excited
to learn English, they were very willing to exchange some of their culture with
us!! We had a few students share jokes
in Kreyol, a slightly awkward poem (didn’t translate well…LOL), a welcome song
and (our favorite) the Haitian National Anthem.
By the end of the day we were showing off our Kreyol to our students,
acting like we could speak as well as Kristina.
Our students thought this was very funny, which allowed us to teach
English in a welcoming environment.
“Teachers must learn from their students as much as their
students learn from them.” –Kristina and Meghan (maybe?)
Bonswa TOUT MOUN!!!
Kristina and Meghan
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