January 13, 2014

Muslim Elementary School

Wesley International School

Worldbridge Language Center

Today was our first day teaching in Indonesia!  We started by teaching at a Muslim school this morning.  It was Muhammad’s birthday celebration today, so we treated the students to some games and songs to celebrate.  I had lots of fun leading the songs, and the students responded really well even though they didn’t know much English.  I was amazed at how friendly and welcoming the students were towards our team.  After a little bit of confusion when we walked in, the students enjoyed our activities.  I had a little fan club calling my name by the time we were leaving; it always feels good to make a connection with students.  After the Muslim school we went to Wesley International School, where I worked with Mr. Gallaher, the music teacher.  His class was very entertaining, and the students had fun while in the class, but he did not have much control over his classroom.  He also did not have a logical flow of progression between his ideas, and he chose a very difficult song for the students to learn.  Although I enjoyed watching his class, I would not have done much similarly if I was teaching the same lesson.  I was very disappointed in the lack of quality music education these students were getting.  I then went over Worldbridge, where I taught a lesson to seven students between eight and ten years old about how to make pizza.  We used flashcards to discuss the steps necessary to make pizza, and then the students were actually able to make it themselves.  I also developed some games to teach sequence words, and the students comprehended the words quite well after the games.  It was hard to gauge what I should teach because the student’s English level was so varied, and today was the first lesson we had with these students.  A couple of the students were able to easily answer my questions, while two others were unable to answer yes or no questions without a lot of help.  By the end, we established a positive rapport with the students, and all of them said they enjoyed the lesson and wanted to come back on Wednesday.  Today was a really great day, filled with many different teaching experiences.  I learned so much about adapting the lesson to meet the needs of the students, especially at Worldbridge today.  I was also amazed by the friendliness of each of the different groups of students.  I have loved the opportunity to work in so many different schools and work with so many different people already; it has really opened my eyes to the idea of how an international teaching can be a huge mission field as well.  Even though the Muslim school and Worldbridge are not Christian schools, it is a great opportunity to love these students and show them Christ’s heart through my teaching.