They just keep on surprising me...

Since the first day of school I have been working with the students to help them to do all of those good things we try and get the Canadian students to do, think critically, ask questions, participate in class, learn, try, and above all, have fun. (sounds easy right?). I have been trying to do this through presentations, team building and to be honest, giving marks for speaking in class. (it works here!)

The first set of presentations I had the students create was kind of a disaster.  I couldn't understand most of what they were saying (thank goodness I read their stories first, which by the way were just as hard to follow, thank goodness I had their plot diagram to follow...). Anyways, we are currently doing more presentations for the Novel study unit.  We talked at length about how to engage the audience, how to make it interesting, how to use your voice to captivate the audience, how to add humour, speaking slowly, having visuals...etc. etc.

Well, if those students didn't just go and listen to me, and rock their presentations today. It was, Awesome. (haha, reference to facebook for any of you who read my status).

For those of you who did not I'll add the conversation here:

Me: How are you progressing in this class?
Student: I think I have learned a lot of new English words.
Me: Oh, which ones can you tell me about?
Student: The word "Awesome" I didn't know what that word meant until you were my teacher. You say it all of the time, and on the first day I had no idea, and now I know. 
Me: That is Awesome.
Student: Yes it is.

Anyways, these kids blew me away! It was great.  I have added some photo's of one of the groups who were showing the Character Development of some of the characters in Tuck Everlasting. They went out of their comfort zone and I'm so proud of them.

P.S I did not tell them they had to dress up, make characters, any of the things they did.  We have very limited resources here, and somehow they managed to kick butt with what very little we had.

This is Jacob, he is showing the character development of Winnie Foster - the strap on his dress kept falling down, and he kept adjusting it to make sure he looked good for the entire presentation. Oh my, it was to funny.

I have no idea when they found time to make this sweet scene changer gadget.  But, again, added to the presentation, and it was "Awesome".

Dear Team. You Rocked.

I wanted to add that not every day in the classroom is as exciting as the last two posts.  Actually, most days have been pretty challenging and putting me out of my comfort zone on a regular basis.  It is wearing on me, that combined with living in a new country has made the last two weeks quite a learning experience. (actually the last two weeks have totally sucked, and it has taken a lot of reflection and motivation to stay positive). Thank goodness for Beer, Colleen, and Captain Morgan. (not necessarily in that order!)

As many of you know, finally seeing a small breakthrough in your students/patients/youth whoever you work with, is worth two months of trying to get them to put their hand up in class, when all of a sudden they rock out in a pink dress playing the main character of the story and I wonder, where the heck was that kid two months ago?!  WELCOME!!

Again, I am reminded today, that no matter where we are in the world, we have the opportunity to  learn, grow and become better people because of how we choose to move forward from the experiences we are given.

As Dr. Seuss would say "Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one"