“Christmas Tree!” 11-year-old Sisakda shouted as he popped up excitedly during our Christmas Bingo game on Tuesday night.
We all fell into laughing hysterics.
“No, Sisakda,” one classmate responded, rather annoyed. “You shout ‘Merry Christmas’, not ‘Christmas tree’!”
Students had gone all out in creating their own Bingo cards using our Christmas vocabulary. It took my elementary class about 15 minutes as they were eager to play, especially with Christmas stickers as prizes.
In junior high, however, we have quite a few artists. It took them a full class hour to complete their game squares so Shaloom and I delayed their Christmas Bingo to Wednesday. As you can see, they took their drawings very seriously!
Shaloom and I also made our own pitiful symbol cards as well. With this game, winners become the teachers, drawing the symbols from a bag and calling out the words, thus we all get to participate, even us official educators. (See our efforts below, minuscule in comparison to the teenagers.)
Thus our 3-month term wound down with Christmas Bingo and words of praise from both myself , Shaloom and Santi, our Laos staff member who is a certified English teacher.
While Shaloom and I teach those with some English foundation, I assigned Santi to take care of my A, B, C learners due to their difficulty in entering my Book 1 beginner’s class. At ages 6 and 7, the poor things can barely read Laos much less English. I’m hoping that the new term, starting January 20th, will bring more such youngsters into our midst. Already, office manager Khamxay has received numerous requests from parents to save a spot for their child.
I have a feeling we’ll have to turn some away. There are only 3 of us. We have limited after-school hours only and can’t be keeping students late into the night on school nights. Adult classes are reserved for the 7 – 8:30 p.m. slot. Looks like we’ll have at least 2 of those, hopefully one college group and another for working professionals needing skills to communicate with clients or at international conferences.
Thursday’s “Graduation” Night: Presenting Certificates of Study
In the past, students were so few (only about 7) that the previous director didn’t bother with formal study certificates. Last semester, the Center prepared certificates of study for the 16 we had enrolled but kept them in their separate classrooms. At that time, I was their only teacher for both elementary and junior high.
But this time around, it was a different atmosphere altogether.
Thursday evening, we gathered at 5:30 in our beautifully decorated main hall. Almost all our 29 students came to receive words of praise and encouragement from both myself and Shaloom. One by one, they came before us to be handed their carefully prepared document. Signatures of both myself and Shaloom, along with attendance tallies for each person, highlighted their paper. The official stamp of the Center was added as well. Quite an impressive looking document! See the slideshow below of our evening together, including some candid shots. (Yes, Winnie my dog got in on the event as well.)
After photos were taken, students chose a Christmas window decal and a Christmas pencil from my stash of hundreds of holiday pencils.
Where did those come from? Those of you who mailed to China my “wish list” asks, the biggest of those being a variety of Christmas pencils. All my pencil hoards found their way to me in my shipped boxes, thank the Lord!
Preparing for the New Term
For those wondering what we’ll be doing for a month without classes taking place, there’s a lot. The Center remains open as always. We have Christmas Day off only, then December 30, 31 and January 1st before returning for regular work days.
Shaloom and I have a lot of planning to do. We need to find new books for his upper level elementary class. We then need to prepare all our junior high lessons ahead of time. Last term was rather a helter-skelter mix of us trying to figure out what we should cover. It doesn’t help that they arrive willy-nilly, often 15 – 20 minutes late, giving us only 40 minutes of quality time to cover what we want to cover. Often times, we have to nix the lesson.
As this is not a public school, we can’t make them come on time. Scolding is not helpful, nor does it produce a happy atmosphere, so we go with the flow, smile and make a great class despite unenthusiastic, exhausted, ready-to-go-home teenagers. Takes them about 10 minutes to warm up but warm up they do eventually.
So as you can see, Shaloom and I have a lot of discussing to do about how to keep them actively learning and happy while trying to accomplish what we’d like to be accomplished.
I am also planning on seminar and workshop courses I’d like to open up for area businesses. Santi, my translator, and I will hopefully be going to hotels, beauty salons, public schools, even government offices to cater to the needs of those who want us. I was hoping for Saturday mornings or afternoons where we cover English vocabulary needed to communicate with foreign clients or visitors. Vientiane is in great need of such training. Let’s see if I can get it off the ground for the new year.
I do have more to report but I’ll save it for another day. It’s a late Sunday night here and our usual Monday morning staff meeting takes place tomorrow. It’ll be a quick wind down, then an even quicker winding up for 2025.
Connie in laos closing off, always grateful, always excited to share, always eager to continue onward. Merry Christmas!
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