My Budding Artists

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So last week's classes were "Fun" classes, meaning we didn't do stuff in the book.

I prepared a listening exercise for my students in both grades. I divided them into teams by rows. One person from each team came up to the chalk board and had to draw a picture of the person I described. The team whose drawing closest matched my description got points. (Few were ever perfect.) Since creativity is not really encouraged here (that I can see) I awarded extra points for it. So those who drew their people with spikes, axes, flowered shirts, etc, got extra points for their team. One character was tall, wore an eye patch, and had a bird on his shoulder. Another had red curly hair, blue pants, many bracelets, and a big toothless smile. You get the idea.
I had one boy apologize to me for not putting proper boobs on his woman. By proper, I mean she might as well be wearing no shirt. I told him it was ok, we could still tell she was a woman. I had a few boys draw them anyway and I made them put clothes on their ladies.

Even those whose English isn't as good (or is almost non-existent) could particpate because their team members would yell at them in Chinese. But it still meant that most of the kids were listening, we could learn some new vocab (like bald and bracelet), and everyone had fun. And it was too loud for the bookworm in the back to ignore us and read a book or work on other homework. Heh heh.

For the final round, I gave a description of a friend of mine back in college. He was a tall, strong/muscly man, with blue hair. He wore shorts, Nikes, and a t-shirt that said "I *heart* Girls." I gave the descriptions slowly, in pieces, so they had drawn some very chisled men before they put shirts on them. (or in one class, we ran out of time and didn't get to the shirts.)
The first day I did it, I realized how good the drawings were and wished I had my camera. (A few of them really looked like my rugby-playing friend.) So I took my camera to the last 2 classes. (1/3 of my classes were cancelled for testing.) These are the pictures from those.

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Photos

Quick, change chalk colors!
The kid in the middle isn't quite sure what he's supposed to be drawing next.

Comments

[Webbhog]

teaching outside the box
I think I have to give extra points to the teacher for thinking up an interesting way to learn. Having fun while learning is like finding a job you like. If you do, you never work a day in your life.