Our classes this year are more diverse than ever. We have our beloved junior seminarians from Sacred Heart Minor Seminary in Mayanchaung, our aspirants from St Francis Xavier Convent, some staff from St Peter’s Cathedral Complex, a couple of parishioners, some KMSS staff, teachers and pupils from the Ascension Learning Centre, some university students from Pathein University and others who have just heard about us from friends and colleagues, which is really pleasing.
The team has been amazing this year. Almost by accident we think we have hit on the perfect match now – teachers who are native English speakers and teaching assistants who have fluent English, but as their second or third language and who can help students with their tenses and empathise and support them as English learners. Our team building exercises were designed and led by Andrea who is here for the second time and this worked very well, bringing us together at the beginning to set boundaries and make plans for the fortnight. But the most pleasing thing has been to see the class teams working together to design lessons which have led on from the basic lesson plans we made to meet individual and class needs. In future years we will try to ensure that we have decided on class teams and stages before we come so that people can work together to develop their own ideas and supports.
None of this would work without the hard work of our students and their willingness to work with us and one another to have fun and complete tasks. Thank you, everyone.
Wednesday evening brought us our second book club. We are still unsure of whether the clubs work or not. We get plenty of takers and the students seem to love them but they do make for a very long teaching day. Could we maybe do lunchtime clubs instead? We will, as always, put out student questionnaires at the end of the week and see what everyone feels.