7 DEC - 9:15AM - SCHOOL LESSONS

Orientation was over. Time for some work.

We stood up in front of a primary school assembly of 120 kids teaching them English. The purpose behind this exercise is primarily to build the relationship between John and the school, to give him more room to move with the gospel and the kids. We do have opportunities to explain how Christmas is about the birth of Jesus who came to take away our sin, and about the Christmas night narrative from Mark 2.

We sang songs, did skits, broke the kids up into groups and did flashcard vocab exercises, played Christmas buzzword bingo. We did interviews and introductions and got the kids involved in a Christmas drama.

From a language outcomes perspective, we probably weren't that ambitious, just hello, what's your name, how are you. I did leave with a high level of confidence that 95% of the kids had an individual mastery of what we'd gone through with them.

...
This particular school is a government school. Schools are funded based on performance - and this one is doing quite well. Most of the kids come from less well advantaged backgrounds, and are motivated to do well.