Yeah! Yesterday was my last day of school. Make that YaWei.
It was year to be remembered for many reasons, a lot of classes spinning out of control, making me wonder if I made a difference with the spinners, those born in the Chinese Year of the Entitled Child. But YaWei, my youngest student, helped me put things in perspective.
Having never been exposed to English before, YaWei entered my class in March as a language sponge and two missing front teeth. While I created a few tools to help with the language gap…
my most successful teaching tool the Ylvis’ video, “What Does the Fox Say?” But that isn’t how YaWei would pronounce it.
Yes, F@#K.
YaWei created a box about the F@#K book, which was inspired more out of his desire to use the glue gun than the words.
The video is about four minutes long and ends on YaWei’s pronunciation in early April. I worked hard to get him to put that final “s” on his fux. His first few months were spent learning the rhythm of the English language, gestures and utterly most important to him, how to snap his fingers.
My advice to anyone teaching English to language learners? Push reading. Then push it more. Then keep on pushing it. If students read, grammar will teach itself. So will pronunciation.
And that’s something to give a F@#K about.
Are they all hard of hearing?
You sound really loud!
Teacher voice!