Last days of school

26^{th -} 27^th  March

Morning assembly on Monday was to be the presentation of the Read for Leisure, Read for Pleasure poster prizes and Joan had found some large star stickers amongst her goodies, which we could affix to the prize winning posters and note category and placing on them. 

I arrived at school at school early and cornered a couple of class 8 girls, who did not have entries in the compentition, to provide assistance – having sworn them to secrecy!  They helped me pull out the correct posters to which to affix stickers, and arrange them in order -  the latter required rearranging into the order I wanted them – starting with third prize in the lowest class category and working up.

Plenty of material for advertising lesson in the school canteen

I also wanted the posters displayed as prizes were awarded, so additional help was recruited.  In due course all was organized, the girls knew what to do:  there were those holding the posters yet to be shown, those who would show the posters, and those who would hold the shown posters.  There were those who were holding the prizes and certificates and would hand them to Joan for passing over.  The prize winning posters would go to the library for display.

 

School canteen - there was some healthy food in the pots!

The girls were waiting downstairs outside the staff area, when one of the other teachers tried to shoo them away to their SUPW duties, but I intervened and said they were there to help me – much to the surprise of the girls who thought I could not speak Dzonkha and therefore could not understand the other teacher.  I just smiled and said I did not need to understand the words to know what she wanted!

At the appointed time, all went smoothly, and as planned, although my voice was getting ridiculously weak with laryngitis.  The students were photographed receiving their prizes, along with their posters, and these were shared on the school facebook page.

Group work - it took them a while to get the idea that
I wanted them to talk about their ideas!

My plans for class 7 English lesson on advertising as a communications medium was rather abysmal.  I had planned to show them a videoclip using data from my phone to hotspot my laptop – the dataprojector could be located but the correct connector to the power socket in the classroom could not.  The boys who were delgated to find both the dataprojector and the power board connector took half the lesson to do it! 

I had enough voice to brainstorm with the class the what, where, when, why, which, how etc of advertising and that went well, with one group throwing in some unexpected input about advertisements that educate about diseases, and social and global problems. 

A visit to the school canteen in my free lessons provided some fabulous material for my lesson – I could show the students photographs of packets of all the disgusting junk food that was available from the canteen.  Even the “apple juice” revealed a plethora of ingredients that one did not really want to know about!

The afternoon lesson with the class was less successful -  my voice was going completely, and after trying to discuss with them the advertising methods used in the packaging – dissolving into coughing fits every time I tried to croak a few words -  I set them an assignment task to be completed over the next couple of lessons.  Advertising:  fact or fiction.  They had a choice of essay, speech, poster or make their own “truthful” ad – I had showed them a couple of examples.  There were so many blank looks as I asked them to start work on this somewhat open ended task – open ended obviously being something they were unused to, although the reading poster submissions would belie that – that I gave them an alternative task:  find 4 product wrappers, display on a poster and explain the advertising method used on the wrapping.

The next day, one group of boys provided me with a finished product – neat, nicely done, beautiful illustrations, copied verbatim from a website of a company that specializes in parody ads.  Sorry boys, positives for presentation and timeliness but zero for content.  Please do your own work – many expressions of surprise there!!

Joan’s last PD for the staff on music as a medium for teaching English language went down pretty well, judging from the smiles on their faces as they did the participatory activities, though when she asked them to make up their own silly rhymes, there was some puzzlement. 

The staff enjoyed the singing / dancing as much as the students

She used as one song example something about a kookaburra in some other country, and did acknowledge that I might be wondering – my voice was not up to expressing that myself!

I was chatting with Trish after school – planning to visit and see her house - when I received a message from Phub – I had arranged that I would meet her on her return from Thimphu, where she had been attending a funeral, to her home.  She was almost at Lobesa.  I excused myself and moved down the hill to the hotel as fast as the gradient and my dress shoes would safely permit, dumped my bag, swopped kira for casuals and sensible shoes and got to our meeting point a minute or so after she did. 

We went in to the café for coffee and momo – the latter of course taking twice as long as promised – and we chatted.  She was travelling with colleagues and their small child – who was a particularly bad traveler and had been car sick all the way to Thimphu but had thankfully slept from Thimphu to Lobesa.  It was lovely to see her again. 

It was about 6:30 when she left and I called Joan to ask if she still wanted to have dinner at the Lobesa Hotel as we had planned, and I said I would meet her there in 15 minutes (or so…)  While I waited for her I ordered a hot honey-lemon-ginger drink with a shot of Bumthang herbal brandy.  Anything to try to get rid of the respiratory infection that was settling in!

Our host at the Lobesa offered to host us for dinner before we left – there not being a lot of time left, we figured this would need to be the following night.  It is very generous of him and a reflection of the appreciation for our presence and role there in the community.

I was ready for sleep when we returned to the hotel, but realized I still had a lesson to prepare for class 8B on subject-verb agreement. 

My Tuesday lesson on advertising worked so much better  - I had taken the connector plugs/powerboards from my hotel room and Trish had lent me her Bluetooth speaker, although I could not get it and my laptop to talk.  Class 7 went to the science lab as per my instruction, the science lab was open, as per my request and the class were really quiet as I played the videoclip, pausing regularly to make sure they understood.  I think the videoclip was a rather novel experience for them in class!  They were also great as I ran through a series of ads I had downloaded and more of the packaging advertising – joining in with attempting to read the ingredients list, and one of the girls picking up on a line from the videoclip – and lots of other unpronounceable ingredients!   I had explained to them that the numbers on the ingredients list were chemical preservatives, additives, flavourings etc.  most of which were not particularly good for one!

I set class 8 homework to finish their subject-verb agreement work, as they were a bit slow starting, and told Mila – he will probably need to follow that up as I suspect I will not receive a heap of notebooks to correct.

The staff were flat out trying to get their individual work plans finished.  While the staffroom conversation about that was in Dzonkha, I had no trouble in figuring out what it was about.   

I spent some free lessons tidying up things, distributing “chartpapers” and other teaching-learning materials and planning for my last lessons for Wednesday.

6 girls from 7C, at lunch, invited Joan and I to a little party – cake and sweets; the cake was pretty good but the one less toxic looking sweet I tried was particularly reminiscent of all things artificial and I managed to give the rest back to the girls. It really was so sweet of them to do this for us.

Essay writing - methods castigated by some
but it provides some structure for ESL learners

I talked with Mila about the essay writing with his class 6 – he gave it to me because he did not know how to teach it.  I’ve told him the technique I’m using is not universally supported but I think it’s a good starting point for ESL learners. 

I invited myself to visit Trish’s house, I was interested to see where she was living – it is quite spacious, and the kitchen has a bench, and she has a little furniture provided by her landlord (one of the teachers) and the school.  One does not need much. 

I went to do some shopping for toiletries and decided to also buy a beer.  Whoops, I forgot it was Tuesday! Dry Tuesday! They did not tell me “no” which was a bit naughty!

I met Joan at the cake shop, eventually, to order a couple of cakes to share with the staff the next evening for our farewell.

We had a final dinner at the Lobesa with Trish – courtesy of the management – including wine!  It was a very pleasant evening and the management's largess in hosting Joan and I was extended to Trish, although we offered to pay for her meal.