The Exciting Life of an ESL teacher: 220 copies later...

My life has had very little excitement lately. Mostly, I drink a lot of iced coffee, teach, and study for the GREs. In the two weeks before summer vacation starts my co-teacher and I decided to do a remedial phonics unit instead of starting a new chapter. The problem is that the previous 4 teachers insisted on only teaching the book--which has absolutely no phonics. That means that for the students who aren't inordinately bright or attending hagwons, they don't learn how to read though they might recognize some vocabulary words.

We decided to focus on the vowels since the students have a pretty decent grasp on consonant sounds. Today was 'A.' I basically tried to remember the best of phonics from when I taught at a hagwon last year, using my memory to recall similar exercises from a Scholastic phonics book. That's right, my 4th and 5th grade students are doing stuff that I taught kindergarten students. They had a lot of fun with it though. We ended the lesson by learning how to read a story and drawing pictures to go along with each page. I made an example (that we turned into a power point).I loved looking at the pictures though one student made his can a Hite beer can. I guess I know what his parents are drinking.

Spaz update:
I woke up this morning feeling like an absolute zombie despite getting 8 hours of sleep. I somehow managed to knock into my bed side table, trip over a pile of books and stumble over what I think was just my own feet. All of this in the short walk between my bed and the bathroom. No bruises or more permanent damage though so it's a win!