The Mekong Runneth Over

 

School was cancelled this week due to the massive flooding.  Many of the students made to school, but it's a safety hazard because the current is so strong.

It floods every year, but this is not normal.  The monsoon rains have claimed the lives of 83 people in the country so far. 

When I went into the office this morning, everybody was sitting there, doing nothing.  After talking to my friends for a bit, I got bored and wandered off.  I found a bunch of my first graders playing in the classroom, so I decided to hold an informal lesson.  I asked them, "What's your name?" and "How are you?"  They remembered what they learned a week ago.  Yay!

Next, I taught them the names of some body parts.  I pointed to my ears and made them wiggle.  (I don't think they ever saw that before.)  They pointed to their ears and repeated, "Ears!" and giggled.   I pointed to my mouth and made a fish face.  "Mouth!" and more giggles.  They are little monkeys who mimic everything I do.  At one point, I wiped the sweat off my brow, and couldn't help laughing when they copied that too.  On it went.  We sang several rounds of the song, "Head, shoulders, knees and toes."  Whenever we get done with a concept, we clap for ourselves.  They love that. 

There was a Pinocchio book in the classroom.  All the children huddled around and pointed at things in the book.  I would say what it was, and they repeated:  girl, man, puppet, boy, woman...   I like working with the students at this age because they are going to develop good accents having a native English speaker.  Up to point, they have been taught by Cambodian teachers whose pronunciation is not always correct. 

I taught them left foot and right foot.  Then, we did the Hokey Pokey.  When I looked up, I saw a dozen moms peering through the window curiously.  I wonder if they will be a permanent fixture.

The children have some knowledge such as reciting the alphabet and counting to ten.  Laum said many of the first graders attended school last year even though they didn't have a sponsor, but they weren't officially enrolled yet.

The other teachers asked me if I can swim and joked about going in the "swimming pool" behind my apartment.  I told them that we can all go swimming, but the shortest people go first.