New view, new class

Sunrise from my new window

Instead of waking up in a pitch black room, never knowing what time it is, I now wake with the sun every morning. I love my new room! I now hear the constant hum of traffic, occasional horns, loud speakers and the rush of students leaving class and congregating on the sidewalk every night at 10:30 pm. I know what time the sun rises and sets and what the weather is like when I wake up. A window (especially an entire wall of a window) makes me feel much less like the cave dweller I felt like for my first six months.

Sally and Wendy

The new Kitty Class. Front Row: Sally, Douglas and Andy. Back row: Sebastian, Melody, Wendy, Tony and Will

My new classroom unfortunately does not have a window, but it's okay because my kids have all my attention anyway. My new class is the youngest class in the school and they are true beginners to English. I ended up naming only two of my morning students (Douglas and Will named after two friends back home); The other names were changed by parents after the first day of class (Bonnie was changed to Sally, Echo to Melody). But I did get to name a few students in my afternoon classes. I named Phyllis after my Mom's middle name, Taylor (for a girl) after the name I would have been given had I been born a boy, and Graeme after a friend in Scotland.

My new class is cute but has been a lot of work. I'm thankful that I didn't start out as a new teacher with this class because I would have gone crazy. They each have the attention span of a gnat and it was hard getting some of them used to me. Melody would cry and scream if she was left in the room alone with me. She is now okay with leaving the door open and she even (gasp!) looked me in the eyes on Tuesday and said good morning! Although she did pinch me yesterday when I tried to teach her that the color wheel should include more colors that just green.

Douglas cried the entire first week but has recently decided that laying on the floor by the door suits him better (ignoring me completely). The rest of the students all seem to really like me and it's been fun working with new students for a change. I still have my old Kitty class (now Bambi class) for one hour of phonics each day and I'm happy about that. Having completely new students to English it will be interesting for me to see how much they progress by the end of August and in the process to see if I am actually educating these young minds or I should give up teaching altogether!