Monday, February 09, 2009

Teaching English

Yesterday, when I picked up my granddaughters from gan, pre-school, the older one mentioned something about my giving them English Lessons. I didn't think all that much of it, since I'm always giving them lessons by only talking to them in English. OK, it's not "pure English."

There's more than a "smattering" of Hebrew in the English I use with my grandchildren, but they are learning more English than they would be if I didn't use any.


"Throw it in the pach, (garbage.)"
"Go to the toilet to make peepee."

There are terms they understand and even repeat like:
"Be careful."
"Wash up." (Which they hear as one word, washup.)

English isn't a "foreign language" for them; it's familiar.

When I was babysitting, before we got the baby, toddler age but not yet independently walking, the mother of the elder's best friend called:

"M- said that you're giving them an English Lesson today. What time should I bring her?"
"Really, I didn't know that, but no problem, I'll put something together."


Within a few minutes, the "class of three little girls" were ready for their lesson. Obviously, I had no time to prepare "materials." When I was the temporary girls gym teacher, for 13 years, I used to start lessons with the song, "Head, shoulders, knees and toes," so I taught them that, which has a lot of vocabulary. Not even my granddaughters know all the words, so they put them at a more even starting level. We sang it a few times until the girls felt confident joining in. Then I "quizzed them" a bit.

Next part of the lesson was colors. They were all wearing some pink. I taught them the word and had them go around the room pointing the pink things and shouting "pink." Then we did it for white and blue. That was enough. I didn't want to push too much, especially for my "new student."

Afterwards I wrote out the song and "vocabulary" for the "new girl" to take home and study.

4 comments:

Mrs. S. said...

Sounds like a fun way to learn!

Happy TU B'Shvat!

Batya said...

Chag Sameach to you, too. They seemed happy.

RivkA with a capital A said...

that's how it starts.....

coming soon, to your neighborhood, muse's very special English chug!!

Batya said...

Actually, someone else is doing it in shiloh. The grandkids are in Ofra. This year it's more a lark, but my daughter hasn't heard of anyone teaching that age.