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Frey Kat Danielle's SEA Travels
"See you tomorrow Miss!"
"Thank you!"
"Goodnight Miss"
Their voices ring in my ears as I say good night to this gorgeous and very energetic class of children. I have spent the last week in Vang Vieng spending my evenings helping out at the local community centre teaching English. Together with Lu and Mickey (Thanks for such a good time guys!) we managed to keep the little ones under control and teach them some English. You wouldn't think that teaching a class of young children would be to difficult, well think again! Imagine a class full of about 40 kids ranging from ages 3 to 12, all with different levels of English and don't forget the wiggly boys with the attention span of about 5 seconds! It was also very difficult because we didn't speak a word of Laos and some of them not a word of English. Almost all of our classes were taught using creative drawings on the board which included some very oddly shaped faces and bodies! To be honest most of our lessons were spent playing 'Hokey Pokey', 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', 'Duck, Duck, Goose', a very lively 'Ready, Ready, Go' game and lots and lots of songs! I have never seen a group of kids enjoy themselves so much and in fact I don't think I've ever had this much fun singing and playing games! The lessons ran for an hour, which was only just long enough to fit in half an hour of serious learning (e.g. alphabet, body parts) and another half hour to run around like a mad women playing games and singing songs! Once they have all departed, hand shakes from the boys and very cute cuddles from the girls, you're left feeling on a high from all the excitement and buzz, and then within 2 minutes you're feeling completely exhausted!
There is another class taught after the little ones for the older more advanced speaking English teenagers. It makes a pleasant and peaceful change from the chaos only minutes before, as this class is slightly smaller and their English is much better! This class was just as rewarding to teach as the first, but it was more of a challenge at times, especially as a lot of the focus was on grammar which is not one of my stronger points! Most of the lesson time was spent on pronunciation, punctuation, spelling, grammar (eeek!), role play, playing hangman, chatting, laughing and lots more chatting! I don't think they were too fussed by our teaching abilities (or lack of!), instead most of them seemed to really enjoy talking to us and getting to know us better. They were so keen to practice their English and incredibly curious about ours lives back home. Considering it was the first time any of us had taught English I don't think we could have hoped for a more attentive and delightful class to teach (now I'm really beginning to sound like a teacher!).
I have had a fantastic time teaching these children and teenagers, and couldn't have had a better more amazing experience. This week has really made me aware of a completely different world, I think sometimes we seem to forget just how lucky we are. We get so caught up in our lives, the decisions we have to make, the stress of work, supposed money worries, relationships and the list can go on and on. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should appreciate more of what we have, the choices we can make and the opportunities we do have throughout our lives. I won't go into detail about the lives some of these children lead, the lack of choices and opportunities they have, because I realize most of you are aware of this. I just wanted to share my experience with you, remind you of what you do have and just how lucky you are to live in the country you do.
Lots of love
Danielle
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