Great lessons

Today was pretty good for a Tuesday. Everyone had a quiet day with mainly one student in each class, what we call man-to-mans. Most of the teachers enjoy having more than one student; they can then sit back and let the students do para-work (parallel conversation, teacher not involved). But I don't mind man-to-mans, particularly if I have an enthusiastic student. Sometimes it can be pretty difficult, because the student is having a hard time learning (the lesson might be a bit difficult for them at this stage), or they're just not into it. But I had a pretty good run.

I was GOING to have my first kids lesson today, a man-to-man with some wild girl, my kids coordinator told me. In the end, she didn't come so I didn't have to do it, to my relief somewhat. There's heaps of activities in one kids lesson, so remembering them all is pretty tough. I wouldn't actually get through all the activities but just remembering what to do is kinda hard. Anyway my best lesson today was my 3rd last lesson. I had two students who were both pretty enthusiastic, and one of them, a girl, was pretty funny. She's that kind of energetic, always smiling type. I've only had her once in my class, but it was a voice lesson. The other student was a guy, except I was expecting three students, so one was missing. Now you generally carry files into the class with the students' information on them. So I looked at the name and asked, "Are you Takae?", and he said no. I made a show of it, saying I'm sorry that I guessed the wrong name and all. Then I introduced myself and then asked him to introduce himself. I said "Takae, can you introduce yourself?" IDIOT! He started by saying "My name is T...." (different name, but I don't want to reveal students' names) and I realised I had said the wrong name AGAIN! We laughed about it, especially after he told me that Takae is a girl's name...I was pretty embarrassed.

Anyway, the lesson was about sharing news about your friends. So there were general phrases like "Did you know that...", "Do you know about (name)", stuff like that. So eventually I asked them to make up a story to tell the other person. This girl is creative...too creative! The story went like this:

Girl (A): Do you know what happened to Andrew (teacher at Nova)?
Guy (B): No, what happened?
A: He was arrested. (Laughter by everyone, it was pretty absurd)
B: W..Why was he..arrested?
A: He murdered elderly people. (Followed by more intense laughter, because it was just so shocking that she could have thought of that)

We had been talking about marriages, travelling, accidents, new jobs as sharing news. And out of nowhere she pulled this shocking situation. What's even funnier is that when she first said murdered, I thought she said 'mother'. Then she showed me a stabbing motion and I finally understood. So strange.
Then later in the lesson we made up more stories, in practicing sharing news with friends. This girl is so cheeky, she made up a story about two Nova teachers getting married! And her fluency is far above the level that she's in, its just her grammar that is holding her back. I think she's been to Australia once before. Cool.

Anyway it was a great lesson, had a lot of fun. The highlight of my so-called worst day of the working week.