Mildly Amusing

My supposed “Reproductive Health” class took a turn for the amusing today. (I still don’t know how I’m going to try to work Reproductive Health into this. It is much too mixed of an audience for me to even fathom bringing up taboo subjects right now). Since starting it, I’ve been looking for “warm up” activities to do with the students so they’d get a chance to practice their English while feeling more comfortable with me–who knows, if they feel comfortable enough, I might just be able to carry on my planned Reproductive Health ideas without gender segregation.

Travie suggested that I play 5-minute language games with them to encourage them to be more comfortable around me and with each other, so I chose three to play this afternoon as a trial run.

The first game we played was Rank In Order. I had them all line up according to their birth dates in chronological order, and then say to me their name and birth date in English. They got it, for the most part, but  no one more than the class ham: “My name is Samnang, but my nickname is TIGER.” Nice, Tiger.

The second game we played was Telephone. I had them all line up, and naturally the boys lined up on one side and the girls on another, with an awkward gap in the middle. I whispered, “English is my favorite subject” into the the first girl’s ear, but by the time the sentence reached the last boy, Tiger, he looked at me, decided to flourish his sentence, and so got down on his knees and said, “I love you.”

It wasn’t any better when I started on the boy’s side. I whispered to Tiger, “I like to wear pants that are blue.” By the time it reached the last terrified girl on the other side, she said, barely above a whisper, “I want to kiss you.” No doubt some of the boys had something to do with that one.

The third game we played was Chain Story. I wrote a sentence on the board and had them all come up with their own sentences to add to make a coherent story. I started with, “Once upon a time, there was a princess.” Tiger smirked and added, “She was very pretty.” It went along like this with “She met a boy,” “They fell in love,” “They went for a walk,” and “They got married” until two Christian boys I met previously showed up. When it was time to add their sentences, the first boy said, “And one day a boy came to their house and delivered the gospel to them.”

The second boy said, “And then they believed in Jesus.”

When I put the sentences on the board, all the Muslim girls in the front protested that they didn’t understand (kind of funny and ironic). When the Christian boys explained it to them, they all unanimously said that they didn’t like the sentence and that they should change Jesus to Royal Palace. And so the princess believed in the Royal Palace.

I said to the class later that while I respect everyone’s beliefs, the class is filled with people of many different backgrounds and religions so we need to be respectful of everyone and not proselytize.

And then class was over, and I excused everyone with the intent to meet on Friday. “Thursday! What about tomorrow? Do you have free time tomorrow?” was the resounding chorus. I looked at their earnest, shining (some smug–Tiger) faces.

Of course I have free time tomorrow. For you, all the free time in the world.