March Madness Moments

In my last post I described the project I am calling March Madness. Here I want to share some individual stories from it.

One-on-One Interactions
I have really been enjoying meeting with my students one at time outside of the normal class time. They are told that they are to bring questions or a topic to talk about and then we will just have a natural conversation from there. I've had conversations on a variety of topics with them from their favorite movie, to their future plans, to how they get along with their siblings, and about American politics. It's been very interesting! One neat thing about these interactions is that it has given me the chance to share my faith with a few of my students, which has been very meaningful. Yes, I am a missionary here, but I do not structure my English Conversation classes around Jesus, so being able to talk with them about my faith and hear about theirs was awesome. I'm so grateful when these moments arise because I feel like become more real to them and that we can connect as equals because of our shared faith.

Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous
This is one of the categories for the conversations they can have. One student is a journalist and the other is a celebrity. The students are so funny when they do this conversation. Some of what they say is true, but they also make up a lot of information too, which is just hilarious. During one conversation, I "learned" that Bono was planning on leaving his wife to be with this journalist and live in the tour bus.

Yellow Papers
As mentioned in the post before, I copied their point sheet onto yellow paper. I did this so that it would stand out amongst all of their white papers, so that they would be able to find it quickly and hopefully not lose it. All of the students sort of laughed when they saw the yellow paper, but I thought it was just because it was so bright. This past week I found out why they were really laughing from one of my students. After having a one-on-one with one female student, she said, "We were just wondering why you copied our papers onto yellow. Did you do this on purpose?" I said yes, but they could have easily been blue or green or pink. She then went onto explain than in Poland, if a hospital patient has mental problems they are written on yellow papers. Therefore if someone says that you have yellow papers you are crazy. My students thought that I had picked yellow paper because of that connection. Though now I wonder if they are connecting ME with yellow papers. . . .

As the month goes on I'm sure that I'll have more things to share from this project. Or at least I really hope that this continues to be a rewarding and enjoyable project for both the students and myself.

Peace,
Colleen