Think back to my last post...Remember how I told you that one day my Arabic counterpart would be out and I would have the children by myself.....well, it happened this week! Sunday, the first day of my school week, Hanaa fell while standing on a countertop trying to put something on the wall. She landed on her tailbone and broke it. She was out Monday and Tuesday. Needless to say, I was worried about her, but worried about me too...I speak very little Arabic and my children speak very little English. My Head of Faculty came and told me that Hanaa would be out 2-3 or more days. Honestly, my heart sank to my toes and I felt my stomach do a flip. In this case, there are no substitutes...I would have them all day by myself.
Quickly, I started running through my activities for the day in my head. Yesterday we took a tour of the building and talked about all the things we saw with our eyes. One student was blindfolded and was the "blind" person who couldn't see. I am really working on building vocabulary through real experiences. We took pictures with a camera and labeled all the things we saw. Today, we are talking about hearing. I prepared a Powerpoint which has an embedded sound and on the following slide, there is a picture and word for the sound (telephone ringing). There were 24 different sounds because I have 24 students.
The moment of truth arrives. As the children lined up in the courtyard, they noticed Hanaa wasn't there. They lined up quietly and we went inside. Children put bookbags in the normal spot and headed to the rug. They followed our morning procedures. We sang our good morning songs, sand days of the week song, months of the year song, and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". Thus far, our routines have helped them stay on task. Then we did the activity with sounds Powerpoint....they loved it. They would tell me the Arabic words for the sounds...or at least I think they were....and I would say the English. Please know that I am using small words....sit, look, listen, and broken English at best to try to get them to understand me. By the end of the Sound Powerpoint, I had worked up a sweat! Thought I was having a "FLASH" and then realized the air conditioner wasn't working.....I thought "what else could go wrong????"
Then, I went to click on my "Rainbow Fish" video link and the computer freezes. I have to restart and by this time the children are chatting with each other in Arabic...have no idea what they are saying. Two boys get into a disagreement because one bumped into the other one and it's on. They start shoving each other and I say "La, La (No, No)" and move them away from each other. I turn around and there's a girl sitting in my chair at the computer and is punching buttons...guess what...the computer is frozen again. I say "La, La (No, No) and tell her to sit on rug. By this time.....sweat is in places ladies don't discuss and I take a deep breath. Start clapping a pattern and they copy me. They are back on track. We sort some pictures by color and then by shape...with a mix of Arabic and English. Then, there was a smiling face at my door. One of my fellow teachers came to check on me during her break time.. She said, "Well, you seem to have everything under control!" I said if only you'd been 10 minutes earlier...not so much. Then, a few minutes later, my neighbor came to check on me too. Just seeing a friendly face meant so much. Finally, the Art teacher came to the door for my break time. I have never been so happy to see an Arabic person in my whole life!
I took a much needed drink of water and wiped the sweat from my brow. Sat down to contemplate Plan B and C or the rest of the day. One of the Arabic teachers came and volunteered to teach my children an Arabic lesson tomorrow so they wouldn't get behind. They have to learn 150 Arabic words and sight words this year. I thanked her up and down and pulled myself together. When students came back, the day seemed to fly and we made it to the buses safe and sound....My line was not as straight as normal, but I was just glad everyone made it without any major problems. I dragged my weary body to the room and tried to think about tomorrow.
I studied up on directional Arabic words, like "stop" (gif) and tried to think about tomorrow's lesson....Smell. I put things inside ziploc bags to smell (popcorn, tuna, perfume, flowers, etc.). Some good smells and some bad smells. Thumbs up for like smell and thumbs down for do not like (we've done this before with other things, so I knew they would understand it). They didn't like the tuna or my perfume (lol!). They were much more well behaved today and having an Arabic lesson today with Mrs. Amira really helped. Before Amira left, I asked her to tell them two things.....Shukran (Thank you) for listening and helping Mrs. Christine learn Arabic. The children laughed! We had a much better day! Needless to say, by the time I walked all the children to the bus, I was whipped. I turned around and started walking back from the buses. From nowhere, one of my students who was standing with her nanny started running toward me saying "Mrs. Christine!Mrs. Christine!" with her arms wide open. She almost knocked me down she hugged my legs so hard! Thank you, Lord! Shamsa loves me! So needed this after my tough two days :)
The good new is Hanaa was back on Wednesday and bad newis is she has a broken tail bone. Six months to heal and pain medicine is nowhere as strong as American drugs. She's one tough lady! I hugged her when she came in on Wednesday. Never been so glad to see someone! Good news for me is that I could've been a weak person and given in when the going got tough, but I didn't. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I have a long way to go, but definitely grown as a person and as a teacher this week. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me!
Quickly, I started running through my activities for the day in my head. Yesterday we took a tour of the building and talked about all the things we saw with our eyes. One student was blindfolded and was the "blind" person who couldn't see. I am really working on building vocabulary through real experiences. We took pictures with a camera and labeled all the things we saw. Today, we are talking about hearing. I prepared a Powerpoint which has an embedded sound and on the following slide, there is a picture and word for the sound (telephone ringing). There were 24 different sounds because I have 24 students.
The moment of truth arrives. As the children lined up in the courtyard, they noticed Hanaa wasn't there. They lined up quietly and we went inside. Children put bookbags in the normal spot and headed to the rug. They followed our morning procedures. We sang our good morning songs, sand days of the week song, months of the year song, and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". Thus far, our routines have helped them stay on task. Then we did the activity with sounds Powerpoint....they loved it. They would tell me the Arabic words for the sounds...or at least I think they were....and I would say the English. Please know that I am using small words....sit, look, listen, and broken English at best to try to get them to understand me. By the end of the Sound Powerpoint, I had worked up a sweat! Thought I was having a "FLASH" and then realized the air conditioner wasn't working.....I thought "what else could go wrong????"
Then, I went to click on my "Rainbow Fish" video link and the computer freezes. I have to restart and by this time the children are chatting with each other in Arabic...have no idea what they are saying. Two boys get into a disagreement because one bumped into the other one and it's on. They start shoving each other and I say "La, La (No, No)" and move them away from each other. I turn around and there's a girl sitting in my chair at the computer and is punching buttons...guess what...the computer is frozen again. I say "La, La (No, No) and tell her to sit on rug. By this time.....sweat is in places ladies don't discuss and I take a deep breath. Start clapping a pattern and they copy me. They are back on track. We sort some pictures by color and then by shape...with a mix of Arabic and English. Then, there was a smiling face at my door. One of my fellow teachers came to check on me during her break time.. She said, "Well, you seem to have everything under control!" I said if only you'd been 10 minutes earlier...not so much. Then, a few minutes later, my neighbor came to check on me too. Just seeing a friendly face meant so much. Finally, the Art teacher came to the door for my break time. I have never been so happy to see an Arabic person in my whole life!
I took a much needed drink of water and wiped the sweat from my brow. Sat down to contemplate Plan B and C or the rest of the day. One of the Arabic teachers came and volunteered to teach my children an Arabic lesson tomorrow so they wouldn't get behind. They have to learn 150 Arabic words and sight words this year. I thanked her up and down and pulled myself together. When students came back, the day seemed to fly and we made it to the buses safe and sound....My line was not as straight as normal, but I was just glad everyone made it without any major problems. I dragged my weary body to the room and tried to think about tomorrow.
I studied up on directional Arabic words, like "stop" (gif) and tried to think about tomorrow's lesson....Smell. I put things inside ziploc bags to smell (popcorn, tuna, perfume, flowers, etc.). Some good smells and some bad smells. Thumbs up for like smell and thumbs down for do not like (we've done this before with other things, so I knew they would understand it). They didn't like the tuna or my perfume (lol!). They were much more well behaved today and having an Arabic lesson today with Mrs. Amira really helped. Before Amira left, I asked her to tell them two things.....Shukran (Thank you) for listening and helping Mrs. Christine learn Arabic. The children laughed! We had a much better day! Needless to say, by the time I walked all the children to the bus, I was whipped. I turned around and started walking back from the buses. From nowhere, one of my students who was standing with her nanny started running toward me saying "Mrs. Christine!Mrs. Christine!" with her arms wide open. She almost knocked me down she hugged my legs so hard! Thank you, Lord! Shamsa loves me! So needed this after my tough two days :)
The good new is Hanaa was back on Wednesday and bad newis is she has a broken tail bone. Six months to heal and pain medicine is nowhere as strong as American drugs. She's one tough lady! I hugged her when she came in on Wednesday. Never been so glad to see someone! Good news for me is that I could've been a weak person and given in when the going got tough, but I didn't. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. I have a long way to go, but definitely grown as a person and as a teacher this week. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me!
Amen! You're doing a great job! A natural teaching ability courses through your veins. I think you could teach anyone, anything in your sleep. I've always admired that about you. I know you must be counting the days until Dec. 14th. So happy for you! By the way, do your children have testing (CRCT-style)? Are there textbooks?
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