The sounds of summer

With some parts of days reaching 100% humidity but no precipitation to show for it, air con is now my friend. It dries the room out nicely before sleeping, and prevents melting into a puddle of sweat each time my heart takes a beat.

Still, despite the air conditioner having taken a fonder place in my heart than the fan (that will ultimately kill me), the hot weather doesn't do too many wonders for my day to day mood. It's definitely too hot for any strenuous activity such as rigorous nursery rhyme actions, and I certainly don't want to raise my voice above usual conversation levels. Unfortunately we can't always have what we want, though.

In our introductory phonics lessons Lauren and I decided to follow the British Jolly Phonics program. I cannot commend this program enough. Rather than most of the standard phonics books that teach the alphabet first and then focus on the sounds that the letters make, Jolly Phonics focuses on learning the sounds of the letters from the very beginning in the order that they are most heard, before building up to each of the 42 most common sounds in the English language.

It has worked well in getting many of the children to sound out simple three letter words, but now that we're moving onto more complicated vowel sounds (e.g. 'ai' in 'snail', 'ie' in 'die') the split in the levels of the kids is becoming more apparent.

It's optimistic to think that every child goes home at night, enthusiastically sounding out every English word they lie eyes on. However realising that some children aren't even familiar with the letter 'a' while others are reading full sentences without prompting begins to make me feel uneasy.

"Teacher, teacher!" they wail. "What's this?" they ask, pointing to a pig. Wide eyed and infuriated, I turn to the child intelligently asking the final sound in 'train'. "Teacher!" they persist. Manners nor patience are something I've been able to successfully instill. I have hopes yet.

It's not as though we haven't reviewed every letter every lesson since the beginning. Naughty children anger me more than I ought to let them. Enthusiastic children with no memory retention are irritating, but I suppose they get bonus points for trying (but if they'd tried a bit harder at the beginning we might not be in this mess now). But there isn't even a word that describes my contempt for stupid AND naughty children.

Now, it is likely that there is a strong correlation between poor understanding and bad behaviour; if a child can't get my attention by giving correct answers they'll be damned if they don't hear their name once in a 15 minute English session. This doesn't stop me from disliking them the most, though. Go ahead, climb out of the window; at least you won't be disrupting my lesson.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to pick and choose the kids I want to teach. Nor am I allowed to actually encourage them to climb out of the window. In reality, their dying would probably disrupt my class a whole lot more.

I hope to stream my classes for the next semester. I just have to convince myself that a class full of the worst kids in school that make my blood boil (and it's already reaching boiling point, so it won't take long) will be worth the one with the angelic bright sparks, happily nattering on in English, eager to soak up all the knowledge I can impart...