Week 3 teaching english...

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Hello,

In the second week I had used up most of my lesson ideas, focusing on spoken english. We did chinese whispers, tongue twisters, words beginning with letters they have problems pronouncing (th, s/sh, h, l etc...), and breaking words into syllables and word rhythm.

Luckily last week Jacqui and I spent most of the time team-teaching together, so she was able to expand on the few ideas I had left at the start of the week, and come up with lots more ideas of her own. It is very handy having a primary school teacher here!!! Although these girls are older, they seem to have missed out on a lot of what we do as young children (fairytales, drawing pictures, having fun, being creative etc), so a lot of that works well with them. They are also loving using the computers so taking them in there for lessons is a big hit!

Jacqui and I also decorated the walls of the games room a bit with coloured paper letters and shapes, and it looks a lot better. Every second night we have lots of girls in there (the nights they have been told they must come), with fewer or no girls on the other nights. Most of them only come when they have to... even though they are laughing and having a great time when they do come... so it is very frustrating that they won't just come simply because they want to!! But at least we are giving them a fun experience at those times. It is just so different from the culture that they are used to!

It is still hard to get used to our environment, frustrating not to be considered or informed of things, and sometimes it feels like the rules and the staff makes things more difficult than it has to be. It is all just part of their feudal power culture and a good learning experience though!

We have both decided to stay in KL this weekend, so we had a good night shopping in Chinatown on Friday night (I am delighted to have bought cheap copies of Series 6 & 7 of the West Wing which I am looking forward to when I get home!). I am on a lot tighter budget than Jacqui, so she has been doing most of the buying and has gone off to do more today! Yesterday we went to the Mid-Valley shopping centre out of town (I'd been before though), then in the evening went to a traditional dance show with a really lovely buffet dinner. I am getting tired now after 8 weeks away and also bored with the food at the project, so have got into a routine of a walk out to Chinatown or at least to the 7-Eleven every night for a white chocolate chunky Kit-Kat or tomato Twistie crisps, and a bottle of Pepsi Max! Consequently I am no longer losing weight and think I am probably putting on weight again, especially after last night's buffet!

A final note on the weather. There has been rain and thunder & lightning pretty much every day, normally a heavy shower for a couple of hours from late afternoon on. We actually thought it might be over as we had one full day of sunshine without rain on Thursday, but we are now back to heavy rainstorms. Yesterday we heard some terrific thunderstorms from the safety of our beds during our afternoon nap! It is hot all the time but my tan is rapidly disappearing! I heard you had snow in the UK though, so I can't complain!!

Bye for now.

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