Ravioli - because I can.

It's about time I added a post about "life in Italy", instead of always teaching, teaching, teaching. Today's my first official day of the Christmas holidays, and the children are still at school until Wednesday. Three days for catching up on writing, studying, housework etc.
My daughter requested Ravioli for lunch today ("NOT tortellini, Mum! Spinach and Ricotta ravioli.") Well, it's nearly the holidays, she's a great kid, so I thought, "Why not?"
Then I found that our local shop only had TORTELLINI, NOT Ravioli! They did have ricotta, though, and I had the day off. Again I thought "Why not?"

I started with two cups of flour and two eggs, and made the dough. It was a little dry, but that doesn't matter.

  I began rolling it through the machine...(the machine that my mother-in-law got as a wedding present!)

First pass

Second pass

Third pass

Fourth pass

About the sixth pass, I think

Almost too long for the table

The filling - ricotta, spinach, nutmeg, salt, pepper and parmeggiano

Beginning construction

Putting the lids on

And enough pasta left over to make fettucine!

In the end, with two cups of flour and two eggs (plus the ricotta and spinach, etc), I made 28 large ravioli and enough fettucine for two adults (probably). Then I made some simple tomato sauce, and lunch was ready. It took about an hour to make, with a few facebook pauses. I'll post pics of the cooked ravioli in the next post.

What a difference a day makes ...

... and a smaller class! Today's class was a success from my point of view. I think this was mainly due to the class size being very much reduced (the reason for this is unclear). There were 14 pupils. When I arrived, they were sitting quietly at their tables, all anticipation. We began with the Hello song, which they all respond to, and enjoy. Today I asked I. and S. (two girls), to be my helpers for "What's in your pocket, Lulu?". In the Teacher's Book, it is "What's in your pouch?", but I think "pocket" is a more useful vocabulary item, so have adapted accordingly.

Today the items were Happy/Sad, Big (spider), Little (spider), Elephant, Parrot, Frog, Snake, and Bat.

After the presentation, and drill, I pulled out "The Monkey Puzzle", by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. This is the first time I've tried a story with them, which they didn't already know (we've done The Three Little Pigs many times). I translated some bits, but mostly read it in English, with lots of mime. I asked lots of yes/no questions, and they responded correctly, in English.

While reading "Children Learning English" by Jayne Moon, I was struck by a teaching example in Chapter 5, where a Hungarian primary teacher is telling her class of eight-year-olds the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. She only speaks in English, but accepts answers from her students in Hungarian - which she then reflects back to them in English. This method seems to be very sensible to me. It lets the children know that they have understood, even if they are not yet ready/able to respond in English. It also models the correct English for them.

I tried this today. I stopped often to let the children comment on the story. The book is beautifully illustrated, so the children were very engaged with the story. They were excited to see what would happen next. I had most of them to the very end.

An interesting CLIL point - some of them didn't get that the Butterfly was the caterpillars' mummy. Perhaps with more time, this book could lead onto a whole science lesson in English!

One negative that I will allow myself today - my follow-up activity was not well thought-out. In my defense, I hadn't thought we'd even get that far! We reviewed "I like...." and "Do you like...?" and then I asked most of the children (until boredom and bottom-jiggling set in), Do you like elephants? Do you like... etc etc. Then they all drew their favourite animal from the story.

They don't really care for free drawing, it seems. I get a lot of "Ma io non sono buona/o..." (I'm no good at drawing...), which always surprises me from this age group. I let some of them trace the animal they wanted, from the book.

To end the lesson, we did Incy Wincy, and Five Little Ducks, and I also stayed to support the teacher, while she got the children ready for the school bus. (Note: there was another biting incident, before I arrived today, between two local girls - Ts worried about expected fall-out).

I left feeling very positive. Long may that feeling last.

A difficult lesson

It is never easy taking over someone else's class. For whatever reason you have to do this, there are issues to be dealt with - the last teacher's style, the rapport they had built with their students, the students' own feelings about having a different teacher halfway through the course.

I'm discovering that coming into a pre-school English course half way through adds several other issues.

First of all, there was no record of what the group had already covered. I was told "seasons, clothes for winter, some songs, and hello, what's your name?".

I had already decided before beginning, to start with Cookie and Friends, Starter, and work to supplement with further activities for the more experienced children. This system is working fairly well, although I must say that we end up doing rather more colouring than I care for. That is an issue I need to address.

The main problem for me (and this is no surprise!) is class(room) management.

The class roll has 30 children. Their ages range from just-gone-four to just-gone-six. There are two children who survived the Haiti earthquake, and are living the local youth hostel. This has created some discipline/management issues with the regular teachers, not just for me.

The classroom is long and narrow - it is actually a lovely space. There are large windows, and room to move. There are six hexagonal tables with chairs for the children to work at. At the start, they seemed to have assigned seating, but the last two weeks, I have noticed that this "rule" has become rather flexible.

And that is the crux of the matter.

My job here is not to criticise. I only wish to reflect on my OWN experience of teaching pre-schoolers and young learners. This means that I must establish "English Lesson Rules". What happens when I am not there must not concern me as the English Teacher (me as a mum of one of the pupils is another matter entirely).

So yesterday, after reading another chapter of "The Practical Guide to Primary Classroom Management" by Rob Barnes, I decided to be more pro-active. I translated "We play like friends." and "We keep our hands and our feet to ourselves." into Italian for them, and used it several times. I praised good sitting down, and good joining in, and good being quiet and listening, and everything else I could find.

I felt it had little impact, but with persistence, I expect to see results.