Today I wanted to be creative in class.

We have Haitian teachers in our English classes with Living Media. So of course they teach in the same manner in which they were taught. The teaching style in Haiti is memorization. When I lived over with Paul and the family I would listen to Doris (his daughter) studying. She was just memorizing paragraphs. But when I would ask her what she was learning, what she thought about that, she couldn’t tell me. I remember when I memorized things for a test I didn’t really learn it; I just knew it long enough to pass the test. It also doesn’t give your mind a chance to process the information.
I have been thinking a lot about how I learned English. I also know that they talk and talk about how important it is to read to your children. So I started class today by looking at “Cat in the Hat”. Luture and Felix, the first two students were interested and opened the book and started reading it. They read line by line and together they translated them into Creole as they went, with me encouraging them and helping them along. When the next student, Nicole came in she started reading the lines in English with them too. After we were finished I asked them to listen and look at the picture as I read the whole thing to them.
After reading the book, we used some flashcards to work on colors and objects. When we just had a few minutes left of class I asked if anyone had any questions. Nicole said, “Can I say, “You make me happy?” I said yes, repeating that in English and then in Creole. Then Luture said, “You want to say, Angelica makes you happy?” She just smiled and said ‘wi’. After Luture picked up his bag, smiled and shrugged saying with his whole body, “I feel good today.”
The whole class made me happy too. And I feel good today too.” 