During finals week, we practiced encouraging ourselves and others with the sentences "You can do it!" and "I can do it!" The students performed skits with three real-world examples.

Christmas lasted throughout December at Rih-Sin, with lots of wintery activities, events, and songs all month. I used the Thursday assembly to introduce some Christmas-related vocabulary, featuring pictures of myself and my family celebrating. The kids loved seeing me in the photos! We also sang a round of Jingle Bells for good measure.

Sometimes you don't just want to say "no," you need to give a resounding "no WAY!" I brought a group of three rambunctious second-grade boys on stage to model their refusal to the sample questions I asked.  Did I regret teaching this phrase when I started hearing it used against me in the classroom? Only a little. Hey, at least they're speaking English!

In November, I experienced my first typhoon day! School was canceled and we all stayed inside to avoid the storm. The next day, I taught a series of sentences about typhoons. I also taught my students that, where I live, school does not get canceled for typhoons, but we occasionally have the day off due to snow. They loved watching a clip from a youtube video showing American kids playing in the snow

This week's lesson was inspired by my desire to have more natural and comfortable conversations with my students when I see them in the halls. I explained that Americans tend to use casual greetings like "How's it going?" more often than the formal "How are you?". We practiced both asking and answering this question, and with a lot of repetition students have since become more comfortable using English to chat with me outside of class.

We held a school-wide trick-or-treating event for Halloween, and made sure that every student was able to say both "Trick or treat!" and "Happy Halloween!" I used photos from my childhood to show how American kids celebrate, including some fun costumes that I've worn. My students were amazed to find out it was me in all of those outfits!

My fifth grade students have a whole zoo's worth of class pets in their classroom, so I wanted to dedicate one assembly to introducing their pets (and my own). I filmed the video during the week and played it during my presentation. Then we practiced related vocabulary and sentences ("Do you have pets?" "I have a ______."). 

After an earthquake drill the week before, Principal Deng asked me to use this opportunity to introduce the earthquake procedure in English. I wrote a short dialogue for two sixth-grade students to perform, and then the whole school practiced the routine together!