English Assembly - At Last!

The date for this activity changed many times, but it was finally held on Thursday, May 23 in the assembly hall of my school. It's been a roller-coaster preparing most English classes to participate and even more so to get the English teachers to not see this as a mini-Eurovision, ie, big production number. I wanted the children to have fun and not worry about memorizing words or even dressing up in their finest.

Alas, the day before the teachers were telling the girls how to braid their hair, that the boys needed to wear white shirts and black trousers (some of them don't have them), and that they must know all the words by heart. To me, every member of a class would participate, but the teachers wanted to single out their favorites to perform, and the other children would simply watch. I nixed that.

So the morning arrived, and the English teacher I asked to served as MC said she wouldn't do it without a microphone. So I got someone to go to the nearby mosque and get a microphone. Glad to have it. Then she started to re-arrange the order of the performers I had scripted. Oh well.

Enough of the tribulations, the hit was the square dancing by the 8^th grade students! I had brought with me kerchiefs from USA for the girls and got straw hats for the boys at the bazar. The girls were so enthused at the first practice that they found square dance videos on youtube and wanted to get those flouncy dresses too. And the boys were excited to wear the hats. (I thought they would object!)

I could go on critiquing the problems I noticed, but the next day the English teachers all said it was great. One said it was the first time they had had an English assembly, and how glad we had done it. I plan to leave the lyrics and skits for them to put on their own assembly next year. Truly, sometimes people here simply need to see how something is done and know that they can do it too.

I did give small gifts to the English teachers at the end of the program, and I think that is when they realized that I will be leaving soon. There was much talk about having a get-together for me at nearby Isti Su in June. It is beginning to sink in for me too that I will not be here for next year's English Assembly!