"I live in KFC."

I started correcting my 'fill-in the blank' worksheet handouts today for my M1s (12/13 year olds). The worksheet was for this week's lesson: "All About Me", which focused on a student's name, age, where they are from, where they live, the color of their eyes, their type of hair, whether or not they are a boy or girl, and an "I am _____" blank.

I don't mind correcting 600 worksheets, because the answers range from being perfect, which is very gratifying in the sense that they understood the lesson and worksheet, to being very wrong - which is just downright amusing!

Some notable answers I got back today:
I live in KFC.
I live in the dog.
I live in the apple.
I live in football.
I have red hair. -- (This was one of my hair color examples)
I live in America. -- (Clearly, this student copied off of my template on the board)
I am smart. -- ("smart" was not even a word I introduced!)
I am unattractive. -- (This comment stuck with me the most. First off, it is an awesome word! I definitely did not introduce "attractive", and the fact that they put an "un-" with it is incredible for a beginner English student of 12 years old! But, obviously, it is very negative... so on the worksheet, for that completed sentence, I wrote: "Great word! You are beautiful! Please see me."

A note about this lesson -- it did not go over so well, but I am a new teacher, so this is to be expected, and actually, in a way, I am happy it went all wrong, because I am learning from all my mistakes. It is also showing me the end point of students' ability overall. And, of course, as the week goes on, the lesson is getting better and better. I suppose I was pretty hard on myself on Monday and Tuesday, being that it was the first two days I taught the new lesson plan... but I have definitely learned a lot from it.

However, my lesson plan this week for my M4s - "Me and My Family Tree" - has been terrific! The students (15/16 year olds) love it, as I draw my whole family tree, up to my grandparents, on the board, with little, silly cartoon drawings. I even draw my four cats on the board. As you may imagine, they are laughing their little heads off! I also have the great photo album that my mom put together for me before I left. It is a little book full of family and friend photos, which I pass around during class. I go over the pronunciation of each family word. They have issues with words like "father", "mother" and "brother". They tend to pronounce the "th" sound as a "z" or a "s".

Then, I have a student read aloud a notecard that a Thai teacher translated for me.. which reads: "You will present your own family tree next week to the class. This will be graded." Oh, the horror on their faces! And I nod my head with a big smile... but, I'm not that cruel of a teacher - I then make it clear that they do not need to go in depth, as I did, but that they just need to do their immediate family. I tell them I want names and ages of parents, brothers and sisters. I want them to do a "Hi! My name __. I am __ years old. I have __ brothers and __ sisters. Their names are __. They are __ years old. My father's name is __. He is __ years old. My mother's name is __. She is __ years old." And that is it! They are very relieved to hear this... and I am very excited to hear them present... and also to sit down for the class period and not sweat buckets for once. I then ask them, "Should I bring the microphone?" Thai teachers use the microphone in all their classes. And all at once, the students vigorously shake their heads back and forth, and simultaneously scream "NO!" I then sit down in the back row (depending on the classroom format) and put my finger to my ear and clearly say, "OK, but if I cannot hear you, you will use the microphone."

For my M1s, I will begin a simple family tree lesson next week. I will have them literally draw their family tree on a worksheet/ vocabulary sheet I am handing out. This week, I have started the M1 classes out with making nickname namecards. I bought index cards and string, and provided them with English Dept. markers... and had them each make a nickname card. They absolutely loved it! Remember, they are 12-13 year olds. It also very much helps me in putting faces to nicknames, and grabbing the distracted students' attention.

Speaking of nicknames -- to give you an idea, here are both some crazy and common ones that I have in my class: Reindeer, Arm (common), James Bond, Dream (common), Earth, Boy, Film (common), God, Cartoon, Ice (common), Mind (common), Golf (common), Joke, Ball, Nurse, Beer (very common), Air, Frame, Soda, Bank, View, Punch, Mouse, Dung, Oil (very common), Eye (common), Mint, Cake, Nut (common), Game (very common), Fame, Name, Ham, Cream, Gun, Rabbit, Ink (common), Milk (common), and Boss!!!! ... just to name a few...

Thanks to Howard for the blog post title idea, which he recommended when I told him that I had a student write "I live in KFC."