The CHALLENGE!

Today was a very important day in Monteux (the small town where I work) for the elementary schools. It was the Challenge des Langues Vivantes, Anglais! A day of skits, songs, and games in English and the culminating event of what the kids have been learning all year. (For me it happens to fall two months before the end of the year, but what can you do?) Even though the Mistral was blowing its hardest and I managed to get sun burned, it was a really rewarding day.

Of all the students there, 6 of the 8 classes were mine (3 schools total, two of which I teach at). Each class had to prepare a little performance, which meant that I was running around for the first half of the day figuring out cds, singing with the kids, and encouraging them to sing plus fort! plus fort! Everyone did alright, but I was most proud of two of my classes. My youngest class of first and second graders sang the best of any of the students! They sang "I love you" (people don't have the same Barney hang-ups here that we have in the states) and "This Land is Your Land" which is particularly impressive because of its complicated vocabulary (gulf stream waters is not easy to say if you're a French 7 year old). They sang so loud and so well; I was so proud of them! The second class that I was really proud of performed a skit of Go Dog Go. Over the spring vacation, they all made dog ears and props for the skit (to my surprise!) and memorized all of their lines and movements! They looked so adorable with their little cardboard ears! Also when we rehearsed yesterday, I told them to be more enthusiastic because it's more fun to watch, and they actually did it today! They jumped and smiled and hammed it up! It was great! Afterwards a bunch of teachers came up and complimented me on the idea and how well they did. It felt so good because I was not sure we were going to pull it off at all, or that it was worth spending that much time on, but in the end everyone had a really good time doing it! Here they are (I'm on the edge...same size as them!) with their ears on!

They were proud of themselves too. All around a success I would say! The next youngest class did a skit of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? Unfortunately, they were far less prepared and impressive, and it was maybe a little painful to watch for the kids in the audience. They are a cute class but don't pay any attention and goof around all the time. But in the end, I think it was worse for them than for me, and the teacher just shrugged and said something like, what can you expect and we laughed and it was over. (Phew! They are certainly not going to get the big scratch n'Sniff stickers that I'm giving to my Go Dog Go class! Maybe a sparkly insect instead...) Another class sang "It's Raining It's Pouring" and "He's Got the Whole World in his Hands" which they sang very well even though the music didn't work for them. Another fifth grade class sange "If You're Happy and You Know It" and my last class did a little Beatles medly - "Hello, Goodbye" and then "All Together Now." They chickened out on the movements for Hello Goodbye, but they did an excellent job sailing the ship, chopping the tree, and skipping the rope for All Together Now. Then finally the performance part of the day was over and it was on to the relay of games based on English vocab, structures, and culture!

The game I was running was Guess Who, and included people that I certainly didn't know about in Elementary school - Mohamed Ali, Carl Lewis, Andy Warhol. But they did ok - and had fun running around and showing off their American knowledge. They all had teams of 6 or 8 kids, two each from different classes, with a little scoreboard that one team member wore around their neck. At the end, the scores were tallied and there was 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, and then everyone got a snack before going home. As the kids were getting ready to go home, two of the girls in one of my classes came up to me and thanked me for my excellent English classes that had taught them so much. They were thrilled because they had come in First! It was so cute and I was so touched that they did that! It was really fun for me to see them feeling proud of themselves for the English they knew. I feel like this year has been a good year for them, and there are definitely some kids who really care about learning English now, which is great. A mother of another of my students who was chaperoning told me how much her son loved English. Then she told me how he comes home and tells her about what we do in class every week - and she knew everything we had done! She knew his English name (Steven), about my little powerpoint that I put together after going home for inauguration, about my sister coming to visit, about the Go Dog Go skit (her son had particularly excellent ears). It was so rewarding to hear that he gets excited about what we do in class! It was a day that came at just the right time, when I was not particularly looking forward to teaching for another 2 months. But after doing this day with my students and seeing them have so much fun and feel so good about what they learned, it got me a little excited to play games with them and think of fun lessons to do in these last months of school. Even though I don't want to be a teacher, I think I'm going to miss being Miss Becky when this is all over. It can be lots of fun.