I think I need to explain the program a little more to help everyone get a better picture of my day and help it make more sense.
The program emphasizes project-based learning. The students that I have, The Greyhounds, are my PBG, project-based group. Every week, we have a different theme and product to complete by Friday. This week the theme was team-building and the product is a cheer, song, skit, chant, dance, something to present that is related to our team.
The format of the day: From 8-10 a.m., we are with our PBG groups. These are the students I have know for a while in the Facebook group, that I gave weekly assignments too and held video chats with for 8 weeks before I came to Brazil. Then snack from 10-10:15. Starting next week, we will have a CSG, communication skills group, from 10:15-11:15 and assembly from 11:15-12:15, the end of the school day. So, every day we have assembly that is led by a different team or group of teams. This week, 3 teams led each day, and net week it will be 2 teams per day. The assembly basically brings all the teams together to sing and dance and be excited about the program, and use English. Sometimes there are popular songs in English and one team will lead us through a reading and explanation of the lyrics, play a game, do a skit, stuff like that. It's hard to imagine American teenagers participating in this, right? Well, our students LOVE it, and are all engaged, even though it is held outside in the middle of the day with the sun blazing down on us.
So, today my team led assembly with 2 other teams. The song we did was Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars, muito legal (very cool!). My team taught the "banana song" (First you pick the bananas, pick pick bananas....NOW YOU GO BANANAS, GO GO BANANAS!) It was a fun lesson in class because the phrase "go bananas" is just great and the students love to say it. It also doesn't make any sense and has to be explained as "something Americans say which means go crazy". I taught them the song in class, then we wrote in on a big roll of paper to help teach the other groups. I was so proud when my kids were passing the microphone around and saying the words slowly and pantomiming the action to teach the other kids. So, so proud! Although it was only the 3rd day of assembly, everyone said how we had the best one!
After going bananas, Team Golden Bears taught us the words to Uptown Funk. They also had a dance prepared. Then, it was time for the much anticipated (by me) dance-off between Team Greyhound and Team Wolf! Our teams did a different part of the song. We choreographed easy moves and then taught the whole group-in English!- how to do it. "Step left, hands up, step right, hands down." Then, we put it all together and danced together...and then there was a show down between Wolves and Greyhounds! When my team was dancing, I had a lot of fun by leading them right up to the other team so we were dancing face-to-face instead of across the circle from each other. THEN we had a giant dance circle! All the coaches had to dance, then they called their teachers and program leaders, it was so fun! I was also really happy because the President/founder of the program was here today, so she saw it all and my team and how great we all were. I think all our egos got quite inflated. And although the sweat was dripping down my shins, I was dancing my face off! Then of course many sweaty group hugs with smelly teenagers, which I'm actually starting to love!
After giant naps by everyone, we had a team meeting. Remember those CSGs from before? Well, our current groups are mixed ability. They haven't ever really been assessed on their speaking ability before because that is a much harder skill to test than reading and writing. So, during the few days we've known them, we needed to do a few short tests to determine their CSGs. These groups are totally at are discretion...the freedom is great, but sometimes too much freedom is daunting. So, we spent about 45 minutes in Paul's room using a dry-erase marker on the big mirror, trying to sort all of our students. Paul has a PBG now but won't lead a CSG so that he can provide support. So, we had to take 9 groups of 12 students and put them into 8 groups based on speaking level...and our method received many compliments. We individually sorted our own students, then threw them up on the mirror. We ended up with roughly even-sized groups, it was amazing! We had a few discussions about if a lower student could be encouraged or pulled up by slightly higher-level students, or if a student who was shy could be encouraged by being the "Best" speaker in his or her level. Still, it was one of the quickest and most efficient student sortings they say they have ever seen.
I went out with 3 people to a pizza/pasta place down the street. I got garlic chicken with brocoli or something. We also got a passionfruit mousse to share with the table, it was amazing! I with that passion fruit was more of a thing in the US, it's basically the best.
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