Teaching, living, learning.

This week has been another good week in terms of teaching, living and learning. 

Having a good but firm relationship with your students is what makes a healthy learning environment. I know that sounds incredibly cheesy, but being able to be heard when talking normally is much better than having to shout yourself into strepsil debt!

Our timetables have changed so Jade and I have our own year groups. I teach 2nd, 4th and 6th standard so am able to see the same classes twice a week. On Monday I teach 4A, 4B then 4C in the morning, Tuesday 2A, 2B, 2C and Wednesday 6A, 6B, 6C of which that then repeats itself again up to Saturday! These classes occupy my mornings and the children are aged between 7-14.

I'm thoroughly enjoying having the same classes and they're showing much more respect and appreciation for what we're learning, which is currently emotions. After 'I feel chicken', teaching feelings definitely looked like a good starting point. This week each class has been able to identify actions with the feeling, and say why they are feeling happy - of which many reply 'I feel happy because you are my teacher', 'I feel happy because you are here'. Very flattering, but we still need to crack on with our real reasoning... saying that, the only thing that makes 4C happy is chocolate, cake and chocolate cake.

My Classroom Rules: 

(Imagine it in a sing song way!)

1 No eating

2 No beating

3 No telling

4 Just Smiling!

...And before you're wondering where my imagination has flown to, the classroom rules sound far more exciting when we put actions with them, honestly! They make it so much easier to gain full control of the class, and number four, 'just smiling' is there to remind them that they're allowed to be happy and relax. As our classroom rules have turned into a catchy song, when someone goes against them its as if they're shaming our rhyme, so silence is quickly restored. They're as good as gold a lot of the time and I'm working on making reward charts - quite a task when there's up to 44 students in each class! 

Jade and I also share our Kindgarden and Nursery classes in the afternoon which has a been a mammoth improvement in terms of fun and progress. We are able to spilt the class into two. Jade takes the girls and I take the boys, and visa versa. We are now able to have groups colouring in fruits, drawing and spelling fruit names and making some speedy Hokey Cokey circles. The children seem to enjoy the time we spend with them a lot more now as we're able to give them more attention and create resources for colouring and drawing - plus Jade and I get to spend some teaching time together rather than crashing onto our beds at the end of day, only one fruit name taught and a rather messy, out of control classroom left behind as if a hurricane had just hit! 

We've also been out and about this week. On Monday we went with the schools head English teacher, Callyanni, to her cousins home for dinner. We took with us a few rupees to pay for our dress measurements so our fabrics can magically turn into pieces of wearable clothing! Callyani is like an older sister to us and accompanies us shopping, to the bank and the market as we're still yet to be allowed to roam on our own. To get to her family home we took the school bus to save on the tuk tuk fare (even though it's only 30p!), and got off in a very quite lovely little location. The school bus itself is rather good fun, the kids are sweet and always are overly excitable... they really are full of beans and the bus warden is constantly banging on the side of the bus to scare off the roam cows that stand fearlessly in the buses way. Ongole is so busy so it was a suprise that when we travelled just ten minutes out we were met by silence and fresher air. It was nice to see a clear sky and hear some birds singing on the balcony over the hustle and bustle of the city. The sky, moon and stars remind me of home. A small reminder that we're still in the same world, :-) 

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