Back to school

We are back into school mode (while many of you may have been there for a while). School started on the first and I started teaching the kids on the 2^nd. And it just doesn’t slow down. From one class to the next-we moved the schedule around some so we have less breaks but we finish earlier…not really sure which is better (though I think I like this way). Our first week has been greetings…I know that we did some of that last year but I’m trying to get them speaking more and the way I think to do that is to do things they are more comfortable with. Not that they are necessarily comfortable with it. In first grade I started with the basic good morning and how are you. “How are you” from most Haitians sounds like “ow ah ou?” as they don’t have the hard r sound in creole and they rarely will say the h unless on a word that doesn’t have it. When they respond in French they say, “Ça va bien. Merci. Et toi?”  (I’m fine. Thanks. And you?). So I’m trying to teach them that as well…but this could keep the conversation going for a long time because the second response is, “I’m fine. Thanks.” And they want to add, “And you?” This also happens in 2^nd grade but 3^rd grade mostly gets it.

In 4^th-6^th we add more questions. “What is your name?”, “How old are you?”, “Did you sleep well?” and the niceties “Nice to meet (see) you.” and “Have a great day”.  I’ve had them come up to the front to practice the conversations in each class so I think we just about have the set conversation down. Maybe I can get them to practice with the next team that comes (though I suppose they are usually working at that time).

I now have 5 classes for the teachers, 2 at Cité Soleil, 1 at Repatriate, and 2 here at Terre Noire. They are all roughly at the same level so I do the same lesson. It is pretty impressive the variety of responses that I get from the different classes. It depends on the day, the heat and the surroundings (sometimes we can’t hear anything with the children chanting or construction going on) as to how they respond. I’m learning more names this time (though by no means all of them) as we introduce ourself or our neighbor at each class…again repetition of things that we can say though I change it up each week as to what we say about ourselves (where we are from, how many sisters we have, what class we teach, our favorites, etc).

first day of school with a crying pre k