School Stuff...

Well, we have come to the end of our first week of work. I couldn’t believe my luck when I heard that I only had to teach 9 Year 4’s! How hard could that be?! I arrived Monday morning and quickly I was given my Year 4’s with their desks, a teacher’s desk and a lockable cabinet. A library shelf was wheeled in, complete with a random array of English Sunshine books and three fans due to there being only one wall with windows. Then I was left to it.

The kids can mostly speak English, with the exception of maybe one, and another who can understand some, but who is very reluctant to speak it. As for the others, well, they’re pretty good at spoken English but are very nervous to write. They can recite the alphabet, but cannot put sounds to letters. And while they’re Year 4, it is going to be more like teaching five year olds to write. As for their skills writing in Tokelau… I have no idea! I suspect I will end up spending more time teaching myself how to teach juniors and ESOL that spending too much time training the other teachers!

After a while I managed to track down a box of crayons stashed away in the back of one of the teacher’s cabinets; they were my saviour! I set the kids off drawing a picture of themselves to be laminated onto the back of their essential English words list. The kids are all very likeable but a few can be a bit too cheeky at times and getting them to finish their work quickly was an up-hill battle at times.

By Wednesday I was exhausted. The classroom was a heat trap and I don’t think I have ever sweated so much in my life! The kids were noisy and off-task most of the time and time felt so slow! While the kids were driving me crazy I did feel really sorry for them! Imagine, at 8 years old, being thrown in with a foreign language teacher, who runs different routines and in stiflingly hot weather! The poor kids were probably exhausted too.

Anyway, it was nothing that a stern word from the deputy principal couldn’t sort out on Thursday! Matt came along to class to help for the day too, which took the pressure off me a lot. I’ve begun to develop some routines so the children know what to expect each day and at home in the evenings I have become well aquainted with my trusty laminator making lots of basic classroom resources. So far: Monitor chart, Essential Word lists 1 and 2 flash cards, board games for lists 1-3, maths bingo cards (a real hit!) tens frames, number flash cards, number fans and “Today is/tomorrow is/yesterday was” poster, days of the week cards and some consonant blend cards, number charts, bubble puzzles, four sets of ‘loopy’ and a family of facts game, ‘Beans’.

Eventually I hope to have so many games and activities that the children can do a lot independently while I work with small groups of three at a time for maths and reading. At the moment they are very reliant on me and I must hear a hundred times a day, “Teacher! Teacher!”.
It was a nice way for the week to end when Timu arrived in with two coconuts and a massive yellow-finned tuna for us! With there being no freezer at school I sent it home with another child to give to Matt who was in a meeting at the high school with the principal!

Matt is currently the PE teacher and part time Year 4 teacher aide! He’s trying to avoid teaching English and Music! Every second Friday he is in charge of teaching the whole high school PE and Health, and he has a Year 11 class on Monday mornings.

Settling in

We have had a quiet first few days, acclimatising and getting to know a few locals on Fenua Fala. We have met a lovely family from Kiribati, the grandfather is a teacher at the high school, his son-n-law is the baker and his daughter, Manuia, is in my Year 4 class. This morning she arrived at our doorstep with a loaf of fresh bread and with a promise of fish this evening and then took me to school.
I was the first to arrive at school at 8am. Eventually the school boat arrived at the teachers and students wandered into the leafy, tropical school grounds. I met Livi, the Deputy Principal and he showed me around the school. I was introduced to the children and we started getting some furniture into the classroom.
It will be interesting, my journey of becoming a Year 4 teacher, especially since all of the students are English as a second language, but it will be made easier with the fact I only have nine students! My first problem was how to group the desks… I know how to group 30, I know how to group 24, I could even manage 12, but how do you group just 9?!!!
I survived the first day, the children leaving to catch the school boat at 1.20pm, and the teachers leaving at 2.20pm. Hmmm… I could get used to this! I know have the key to the school, as the Deputy knew that tomorrow I would be the first there to open up.
Matt’s been busy at home and out and about on Fale today; going to the bank, and shopping for cleaning product to scrub the VSA house.
We have had the choice of two houses on Fenua Fala. The palangi-style VSA house, next to the breezy lagoon, or a more traditional house, further back from the lagoon. The VSA house is in a shambolic state, but is a much cooler option with fewer mosquitoes. The traditional home is very clean and tidy, with a bigger water tank, but is in a heat trap and has far more mosquitoes. After much toil we’ve chosen the breezy, cockroach ridden, mildewy mess.