Overseas Like B's: My "Aw hail naw!" moment

It hailed last night and this morning. It was pretty cool walking to work with the streets paved in vanilla flavored Dots®. But that wasn’t necessarily my “Aw hail naw” moment…it came when I had my last class of the day. This was the students’ first real day of lessons. After a week with no after school program, and two days of evaluations and interviews that would place them according to their skill level, they were finally mine for instruction. I prepared pretty lengthy Powerpoints that told them all about me-where I came from, my hobbies, etc. I was told I’d have intermediate level students. The first class had no problem understanding my presentation. They laughed at my jokes, participated, and seemed very receptive to my lessons. The last class, on the other hand, gave me blank stares after I asked “…and what’s your name?” Dag…at this point I start sweating bullets, knowing that if they can’t comprehend that much, there’s no way they’d understand the rest of my presentation. Chucking my Powerpoint aside I proceeded to wing it for the remainder of the class. I snailed through the alphabet, sang a few songs, and ran out of material with a minute to spare. I think letting them out of class one minute early was all right considering my circumstances. I know now that my workload is doubled and I cannot experience another wing-it day. So henceforth, lesson planning galore, ugh. Here are a few pictures of my classroom: