Kicking it with the kids

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've had the opportunity to do some work with Fundacion Romelio, (romelio.net), a non-profit educational center for pre-school aged children in northern Bucaramanga. The northern neighborhoods have the fame of being the poorest and most dangerous sections of Bucarmanga . Many rural Colombians displaced by the ongoing domestic conflict settle in this part of the city.

At the center, I've begun doing weekly English classes with the kids, who range from 2 to 5 years old. When teaching English to such young people, the most important thing isn't necessarily that they learn lots of new vocabulary. Rather, what matters is that they have exposure to the concept of another language and that they start to become familiar with a few basic words.

Classes so far have consisted of sing-alongs accompanied with drawings of the subjects in the songs. So far we've covered '5 Little Ducks', 'Baby Bumblebee' and 'Old MacDonald'. I've tried to keep the animal theme going because it offers something these young students can relate to. They really like the word 'bumblebee'...actually, they particularly enjoy yelling it as loud as they can. It must sound better that way. I have a disc of children's songs I got off of iTunes which I use in the classes. The copy of 'Old MacDonald' for some reason contains a verse about Old MacDonald having a Brontosaraus. I was quite surprised at how many students could actually pronounce this word (and how many can't pronounce 'duck'). It takes an incredible amount of repetition before the students start to remember the names of the animals, but for some reason everyone seems to remember the word 'chicken' on the first try.

Other than that, I've recently started doing private lessons with a 10 year old Colombian boy. His English is really impressive, so he's been retelling me all about the Harry Potter series. We just got done talking about the Sorting Hat. Everyone else in the world has read Harry Potter, except me. Now it looks like all I have to do is sit back, listen, (watch for grammar mistakes), and pretty soon I'll be able to talk to everyone else back home about Quittage and Voldemort.

Also, here are some statistics: Times I almost got hit by a bus yesterday:3; times I almost got hit by a taxi:2; times I almost got hit by a motorcycle:3. Times I actually got hit by a bus/taxi/motorcycle: 0. I think there's a cliche about 'close' only counting in horseshoes and grenades.