Carlos-TP7

On Friday, Carolina and i were scheduled to teach our Culture Class. When we first got there, we were a little nervous with how many students would be attending due to Friday prayers that all the Muslim students attend. We attempted to recruit a little bit during a goodbye get together for one of the CIES teachers before class began. Luckily, by class time, we had a full room of around 7 or 8 students of all nationalities.

Our class topic was focused on American Holidays, but with an emailed suggestion from Ramin, we changed class plans a little to include their native holidays as well. We posted pictures depicting various American holidays and asked them what they knew about them. After we let them describe the holidays in their own way, we added our own descriptions and additional information from an American point of view. After we went through each of our holidays, we asked them to explain their favorite native holidays. This was my favorite part because we were able to learn a lot about their customs and there truly was a cultural exchange between all of us. After their descriptions, we had them draw a picture depicting their own holidays so we could add them to the American holidays on the board.

Our game involved all of these holidays posted on the board. We had the class split up into two teams in which they would race to touch a holiday drawing on the board that coincides with a key word that Carolina and I would call out. This game was extremely entertaining and I was surprised at how competitive the students got.

Afterwards, we concluded with a general summarization of American holidays and some information on other holidays that we did not focus on during the lesson.