I Taught Kids Today

Tolofa!

So I'm gonna get a little serious right now with this blog.

Yes, it is true, I taught a group of Samoan kids today. It was just a 10 minute mini lesson but I got my first exposure to Samoan kids in the classroom. We had a two day workshop with a non-profit organization here called PiCED, which stands for Pacific Islands Center for Educational Development. It is a great organization that is here in American Samoan trying to promote and implement new educational techniques in hopes of improving the education system.

We prepared short lessons to teach in front of their summer school students. As there are 16 of us teaching high school this year we only had 10 minutes a piece to try out a lesson with these kids. I decided to teach a lesson on Metaphors and Similes. I picked some songs that had a couple of examples of each and played them for the class and had them identify which form of speech it was. Overall it went pretty well, but I will need to work on my speed of speaking and my overall classroom management skills as my class got a little loud.

Anyway, tomorrow I am leading a lesson on "Teaching with Games" for the rest of the volunteers. Each of us has taken a turn leading lessons over the past 2 weeks to learn different techniques for an ESL classroom. I could not have gotten a more appropriate lesson to teach for this exercise as my drama background provides me with a plethora of games and ideas for this a class.

All the learning has been great. Thankfully we are also able to have some fun and get to know each other in our down time. This is a great group of people who have all decided to make a commitment to education and believe in improving the education system here in American Samoa. I wouldn't be able to deal with the culture shock without these people. The fact that we are all experiencing this together as one group gives us a perspective that many others can not understand.

I do hope that through this blog, I am able to explain what we are experiencing for those that I love back home. The fears, joys, highs and lows that are making this a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Below you will find a picture of my new bestie Veronica. She is keeping me sane. The other is a picture of our group in our Lavalava's. (Yes, they're basically sarongs.)

Manu ia le po!