Earning our ELF Keep

We've been busy with a number of events lately.  A project that we love is bringing together two groups of English students from different high schools for an afternoon of events that they prepare for in advance such as planning skits, songs, performances, and presentations, as well as games, Q&A, and conversation.

The hosting students offer the guests dates and milk.

The hosts decorate the teacher lounge for the event.

Students prepare presentation posters sharing information about their home town and school.

Students create the program.

These students wrote and performed a scene that turned really intense. The story is about a Palestinian student in the US who disrupts class and annoys the teacher by acting out, only to find out that the teacher who is annoyed with his behavior is also Palestinian. The teacher ends the scene with a pep talk about being strong and carrying on in life. The teacher and student actors got really emotional in the end of the scene and when they were finished some classmates in the audience were crying. The high school teachers were sort of stunned as they didn't ask to see the script before the performance.  The Emcee tried to wrap it up with a discussion of their concern for Palestinians. Emotions were really running high. The students had a brief Q&A afterward asking the writers about their motivation and students went around sharing some of their concerns and sympathy. It is present in their every day lives and the emotions are raw.  It was very powerful for us.

One of my students in the teacher training coordinated some language games that the two schools completed in a race. 

This student is wearing a traditional Amazigh outfit that a woman would wear to a wedding or other ceremony.

Jennifer & Koala 

The student on the right was such a dear. He was really shy at first, looked so much younger than the other students and was a good helper. As the afternoon progressed he got more and more brave and finally came up to me and Ryan to talk to us. By the end he was posing in pictures and walking around with us and asking me for my contact information. He really opened up and it was so wonderful to see how happy he was to practice English with us.

The teachers wanted to do a demonstration on how to make British tea. They are so bewildered by the milk step. They kept asking about how the milk works 'but Jennifer what about the milk? We don't use the milk!"...finally they asked me to do a full demonstration and explanation of how to make a cup of British tea. Then students repeated my instructions and made their own cups to accompany the MANY cakes we had to eat!

At the end of these events we plant a few trees or plants in the schoolyard to commemorate the event.  Here I am with my trusty pic axe!

The day was a success! From left is Nadia my student in the TEFL & ICT program, the Director of the school, and one of the English teachers. We noticed later that we conveniently lined up in order of height!