The EV Mart

At the English Village, I've taught several different classes. I've tried my hand at social studies (I even designed an African Studies class that I'm asked to teach on occasion), weather, quiz game, and writing, and in the situational rooms, I've done Fast Food, Post Office, and a lot of Pet Shop. The situational class I've been teaching for several months now is the Grocery Store. I really like it. The kids usually enjoy the room - it has enough different realia to be interesting for 90 minutes, which means that usually they are pretty happy and not bratty. I'm constantly having to tidy, organize, and rearrange, but maybe that's part of why I enjoy it - my touch of OCD is satisfied by the opportunity to obsessively straighten and neaten.
Anyway, I took a few photos of my first class this morning.
These are shots of the Grocery Store before the first class arrived. You can see that it's pretty big, which is nice.
From the front of the room:
From the back of the room:When the students arrive, I ask them for their English names, and we come up with alliterative food names for them. Usually at least a few crack them up. Sam Sandwich really loved his name. Personally, I'm partial to "L" names because I like saying "Lollipop".
For the first big activity, they get a map of the Grocery Store and have to do a little inventory of 3 random items from each section.
Kids asking me how to spell "crab":
Girls writing down fruits:These kids worked fast...
... and finished first, so they got the biggest stickers in their English Village passports:
I like to spoil my students with awesome huge stickers. It's a good motivator!
The second big activity is the shopping.
They first have to write menus ("one drink; one dinner; one dessert!") and then write shopping lists before shopping. Sometimes kids have very low English, but we work together to pull something out ("toast and cookies and juice") so they can still go shopping. One student a few weeks ago, who didn't speak English well and was a little lazy, wrote the following:
DINNER: X
DRINK: Potato Juice
DESSERT: Potato
In general, what the kids write as "dessert" can be pretty interesting. Koreans don't often eat sweet desserts, but they might have noodles or rice at the end of a meal, so I get a lot of "pasta!" or "cabbage!" for dessert. Hey, it's fine with me - the last thing our students need is more sugar.
Finally, there is usually a little bit of time left at the end, as students finish their shopping and individually report to me about what their menu is and what they bought. I have puzzles for them to work on during this lull before they leave.
A lot of times - and this is understandable! - kids do NOT want to sit quietly and work on puzzles. But it's amazing how often the puzzles DO work to calm them down. During this time, I stamp their English Village passports with the Supermarket Stamp, and then I send them on their way.
In a full week, I teach 17 classes, and it's often the same subject every period. It can be a little surreal. The children will always wander around the grocery store muttering about what's "chincha" (real) and what's fake. They will always sword-fight with the fish, and pretend that the ribs in the meat section are their own ribs, as if they had an exoskeleton. They will always put the chicken on their heads, and always beg me to give them candy and pop, despite the fact that the candy and pop are 3 years old and have passed through thousands of grubby hands. But still, it's entertaining for me. I definitely feel that Grocery Store is the most fun situational class!