It’s been 3 months of Connie, the overly ambitious teacher, thinking, planning, strategizing, researching, tweaking and fussing over this coming week.

Why so different from any other week? Read on.

Shaloom, my Global Mission Fellow (GMF) intern, is completing his 2-year service here at the Center as an English teacher. He’ll be returning to his home country, Pakistan, on June 16.

As part of the program, a full week of Zoom sessions with all 2024-2026 participants (over 40) and the GMF staff has been scheduled from May 18 – 22. These take place 5- 6 hours per day, at all hours of the day and night since so many GMFs are located all over the world. Supervisors were asked to let their Fellows off the entire week, meaning for me, taking over Shaloom’s classes along with my own. I’ll have Shaloom’s junior high and Level 2 learners, plus my Level 1 learners as well as the adult English Corner evenings and private lessons. Added to teaching, there are administrative duties running the Center as a director.

For my teaching duties, it’s been a bit of a challenge. With some of our classes meeting at the same time, it’s a matter of creating one group lesson for multi-level learners of different ages and maturity levels that will create a productive educational environment.

Sure, I’ve done this before (Halloween, Christmas, Lao New Year) but not with so many students meeting together. This term has us at 20 for Level 1 and 2 learners, which is the combined class I have been pondering over these several months as well as figuring out junior high. Those of you reading who are US elementary education teachers are most likely rolling your eyes, thinking it’s just a week and probably wishing for a mere 20 on a daily basis in your own setting.

For me, not a trained elementary ed teacher, I’ve had to learn the hard way these past 2 years in instructing kids whose English is basic or zilch: through trial and error. It ain’t easy, folks. I’ve struggled how to control young learners, hold their interest, gauge attention spans, strictly enforce classroom rules, create spare tires galore (those extra worksheets when someone finishes earlier than someone else) and structure lessons carefully so chaos doesn’t reign.

My saving grace was the advance heads-up from the GMF program staff who gave me plenty of notifications concerning Shaloom’s week off.

And now? It’s here!

My Lesson Creation: Cellphone Apps

I had my brainstorm after week 1 of lesson topic ruminating : Let’s learn the English names of popular cellphone apps, those that Lao students use on a daily basis. A few are the same in the Lao language (TikTok, for instance) but many others are not.

Like anyone in the world, cell phones are a necessary item of today’s modern world. Junior high, high school, elementary ed and even adults are fanatics when it comes to their phones.

What better way to engage so many in a useful, productive and fun way than to center on what is important to them in their daily lives: their cellphones.

I’ve spent the last 3 weeks perfecting my power point (with Lao translations added by my office manager, Santi), adjusting worksheets, pondering spare tires, designing team groups, devising student-centered segments and pondering classroom management.

Thursday had me picking up my App booklets from the copy shop. Friday I spent the entire day preparing the main hall for our lesson. As you can see, all is ready to go.

I have also enlisted the help once again of  Phimphone Muenpanakhone   (whose English name is Esther) to assist me for the week. Her presence in the classroom for past combined class lessons is vital for our success. Thank goodness she announced she’d be free during class times to help me out. That young woman is a true gem!

Thoughts and good wishes always appreciated

Please send lots of triumphant educational thoughts and wishes my way as Esther and I work our way through the week. Those will be greatly appreciated.

And don’t forget to check out my Facebook page which actively updates all about numerous goings-on here in Laos. I’ll definitely be including visuals of how the week is going. https://www.facebook.com/connie.wieck.5

Take care, all!