Mojito, the 51st State

Another week passed, getting closer to birthdays, Christmas, and New Years!
This past week at school has been a blur of getting our kindergarteners ready to present their speeches and also trying to get to school without completely embarrassing myself on the ice-covered sidewalks. The latter I've actually been quite successful in I might add. As for the speeches, the kindergarteners have been working on memorizing their speeches for the past month. My class had to talk about their favorite animals, describing their physical appearance, diet, and other interesting facts. While some of my students had their speeches memorized after the first week, others struggled a bit. The problem with these speeches is that while we make a CD with my voice recording their speech for them to listen to and imitate, they will just repeat the speech over and over and over again in the same way. This means...if they memorize a part of their speech with the wrong phrasing, pronunciation, or fluency, then that is just how the speech will stay for forever. As much as I tried to work with my students on fixing little things here and there, they practice so much more with my coteacher that they get stuck saying things incorrectly. Now this is absolutely nothing against my coteacher! She is lovely and helps the kids out sooo much! (And I think she knows about this blog- love you Liz!) It is just very hard to change a student's way of saying things when they've practiced the wrong way so many times.

Anyways, it was the class period before they would present their speeches in front of the all of the other classes and teachers when I had all of my students practice saying the speech just in front of our own class. Several students had gone when it was Kelly's turn. Now if you all remember a previous post with Kelly singing our January song in September, you know that this girl has an excellent memory. She was one of the first to get her speech down as well as the rest of the student's speeches too! Kelly began strong, "Hello my name is Kelly Lee, and I am in Texas class at Little America, today I am going to...." and then she stopped...She was smiling though so I thought she just had to sneeze or something, but then as the silence grew longer I realized that something was wrong... tears began pouring down her face as she completely broke down in front of all of us. I immediately went into crisis control mode and chose another student to do his speech instead while I took Kelly out into the hallway for a deep breathing and hug session. It was then that I realized how stressed these students were- in KINDERGARTEN! She was so nervous about saying her speech perfectly that she completely blanked on what her favorite animal was let alone the rest of the speech! She calmed down a little bit after I told her how wonderful she was and that giraffes are the best animal in the world.

After that episode I decided that my kids would not have to sit through a reading lesson. Instead we did goofy dances and the hokey pokey until lunch time. A little hokey pokey cures everything. I told them that they should have fun telling us about their animals and that I love them no matter how the speech contest goes. I then proceeded to make them smile during their speeches by pulling faces and putting bunny ears on people. I've really matured here as you all can see.


This week was also Secret Santa among the teachers! I had so much fun coming up with little poems and presents for my Secret Santa. Friday was the staff dinner where we exchanged our final gift and shared who we had all week long! Our staff dinners are always full of hilarious moments and photo shoots. There was a Gangnam Style dance by Solomon...which I video taped...but I think I love my job too much to risk putting it up for all to see. If you can't handle the suspense and your curiosity is getting the best of you I will email it to anyone who wants a laugh! You didn't get it from me though- shhhhhhh

My secret santa gifts and poems for Alex Teacher <3

Saturday night continued the festivities of the weekend at Amanda's annual Christmas party! The party began with some delicious food including sushi and roasted potatoes (a strange combination yet amazing spread!) Then we got out the catch phrase game. Now...for those of you who have played before, it was most likely with a group of people from the same country and maybe even family. Our group on the other hand had a couple of Koreans, several Brits, a sprinkle of Canadians and Americans, and a Swede. Needless to say we all had some different backgrounds and knowledge of the variety of topics on this catchphrase machine. As the game is passed around our circle the voices get higher and the body language gets more exaggerated until we sound like a bunch of screaming monkeys. Team 2 obviously beat Team 1 every time...(Yes I was on Team 2, why do you ask?)

It was all very exciting and we got some great answers out of it. For example, one clue was "Hawaiian Punch" so Sean told us it was a cocktail (maybe in England?) and also a state in the USA. Naturally the first, and loudest answer was "MOJITO!". Anyone want to move to Mojito State with us?

This mini-white board also made several appearances throughout the evening with the better quotes. Also to communicate emotions to the group...

"It's Game time. SHUT UP!"

It was such a great group of people all together enjoying the holidays! We had Santa's sack full of little gifts for everyone as well as a "Pass the Parcel" game that I brought. We ended the night with some musical trivia and the party migrated out downtown.

Several times throughout the evening I looked around and realized what good friends I've made over these 4 short months. Everyone is so open and welcoming. It is just the culture I suppose with people constantly coming and going. It makes me so look forward to the rest of this year meeting new people and seeing new places!

Next week I am celebrating Beth and I's Birthday! The kids all sing me happy birthday and I get a cake, which is very sweet :) I will get a birthday Les Miserables movie and maybe some sushi? It will be a lovely way to celebrate far from home. Then Saturday is the big trip out to Thailand! I am getting SO excited and will be sure to document the entire trip for all of you!!

xoxo

생일 축하 (saeng il chook ha) "Happy Birthday!"