We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

All in all it was a nice day, as my classes went okay and I think the teens even might have had fun. We are doing "zoos" in both the teen group and the upper-intermediates; it's probably no coincidence as the books are by the same people. But obviously you can discuss a bit more with the adults, if at the very least because some of them had actually been to a zoo and were old enough to remember one that was here 20 years ago. The teens, sadly, have not been to a zoo and so for me I felt sorry that they have not been able to see all the fabulous animals we were talking about.

I felt a bit weird during my teens class, so I needed something simple to do and luckily for me, there was an activity in the book about lists of things. You know, you make a list with commas and say "and" before the final word. So the perfect way to practise this (suggested, happily, by the book) was a zoo version of "my grandmother went to Spain" - "I went to the zoo and I saw a ...." For example, monkey, elephant, lion and a goat.  We went round the class twice, and I thought perhaps they would be tiring of it by then, but they insisted on going round a third time, so by the end we had a list of about 20 animals to remember. And everyone did very well. They helped each other by making some of the noises occasionally. Giorgia even mentioned a unicorn and Bernardo said "kiwi" so sometimes they surprise me with what they know. It was fun because they were remembering things without it being a chore and the challenge was in remembering rather than filling in gaps in exercises, as usual.

I am beginning to find that groups are now very relaxed in each others' and my company, and this week has been nice as probably I have begun to think of different and more interesting things to do, finally. The books give you the basics but for bright students you need something extra and also it breaks the monotony of the same sort of exercises, which they soon get through. I would say that the teenagers learn a lot of grammar at school and they seem to know it well. Jo and I think that perhaps schools do not teach any of them to offer an opinion on much, because we find it hard to get them to say what they think about things. I hope I am discovering the things that make them tick now. The teens enjoy creating things too (we did a zoo poster and a "new" animal). For one of my adult classes, they seem to like more practical things (piecing things together, drawing something which you describe, that sort of thing) and the upper-intermediates revealed a bit of a competitive nature last week when they were searching for words in the dictionary.

So we did endangered animals tonight and as zoos and conservation and animals is one of the most important subjects to me, I found myself getting quite passionate about it and asking them what they knew about issues, what was happening that was affecting animals and why. They knew a little bit, one man whose daughter loves zoos knew loads, which was very impressive. He even told me a place to go in Sicily to see wild horses. But I was soon beginning to rant a little about chinese medicine, poaching and other issues. I could hear the emotion creeping into my voice but perhaps this was good so they know I am human and don't just talk about nouns and adjectives. It was clear to me while I was talking that this is one subject that means the most to me and I would love to work in that field; I have been thinking about my time at the Nature Centre and how much I enjoyed it.

I am forgetting my English though; tonight Mattia asked me whether another word for a tank (as in a vat) was a receptive. Something in the far depths of my brain was saying do not dismiss this, he has something here. I looked in the dictionary. I thought. I had to defer him and say I would look and come back to him; I knew there was some word like it but could not for the life of me think what. The internet kindly reminded me, receptacle. What is happening!?

Tomorrow I have a new class of adults and I have the kids' class. Despite picking up lots of hints and tips this morning from other teachers, I still need to learn a lot about how to teach the kids. Maybe we can do animals (but we are supposed to be using the book. Well, at least I have "revised" animals myself this week!)