Busted!

Saturday at the Family Service Centre, the kids in my group played Monopoly - loudly and enthusiastically - and in Singlish, especially when it came to collecting rent. As in "you never pay me my $600," or "you go to jail where got take rent."

So, I'd say to them, "Can you say that again in proper English? I know you can." And mostly, they could.

And after that they read Red Dot, a newspaper for kids. Lots of graphics and maps and big print. There was a global round-up - what happened where this week. So they each picked a country, and discussed current events, and then the kids looked up the country in the Disney Atlas for kids (I kid you not - it exists) and discussed population, capitals...

When it came time to write about what they learned that day, one of the kids wrote:

"I learned not to be a spendthrift" (He was buying lots of property during the Monopoly game and hit a credit crunch)
"I learned that English matters a lot in life."
"This tuition was FUN." (OK, so it's not meant to be tuition, but fine)
"Next week I want to learn about history."

And when the kids were writing, he kept looking at what the boy next to him was writing and telling him to capitalise this, or change that.
So I told him "Focus on your own work and stop kay-pohing him."

And he looked up at me, grinned, and said "That's not English! You said to speak good English."

Busted.

PS. We're looking for volunteers to help out b/t 10am and noon for the next 3 Saturdays: Aug 8, 15, 22. A whole bunch of the regular volunteers, from Ngee Ann Poly, need to take a break to study for exams. Interested? Questions? Please let me know.