Two Steps Back
After-school program at Whampoa program. Had the four boys. H, one of the boys I usually work with, was at school doing his fitness test but dropped by to say hi just before 5.

Did a writing exercise - correction - attempted to do a writing exercise using a Cartier-Bresson image of a group of boys playing near an abandoned building. Thought I'd try out the cool pre-writing collaboration exercises I learned in class.

They were outta control and we were all over the place. Did I pick the wrong content? Have bad classroom management? It wasn't even a classroom - just four boys. They finally settled down to do their mind-map with one-on-one attention from the other volunteers as well. Learning: plan the group work more carefully.

Later Li, a girl who's really good at Chinese, came over to get help researching content for English homework around advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. Of course, the first article that popped up, the P word appeared under Disadvantages. She asked "Should I include this? My teacher is a girl."

She also wanted to know how to score better in Comprehension, which seems to be a common weakness. Kids can process the stuff they read, but drawing inferences is another matter entirely. Will work on that in the next couple of weeks. See if I can put what I learned at the British Council to good, practical use.