I've been teaching English to kids in Moscow now for slightly more than a month. My pupils have ranged in age from 18 months to eight years so far. Next week we plan to participate in a summer camp teaching program just south of the city where my students will range in age from 10 to 14.
One of our regular pupils is a little girl named Masha. Masha is four, and a very pretty little thing, which you understand immediately when you meet her mom, Oksana. Oksana is quite lovely, and actually her husband Roman, Masha's dad, is a good-looking chap as well. Masha got lucky in her gene pool. They're also very nice people. I don't know what business Masha's dad is in, but her mother runs an art gallery. My boss Robert and I attended an exhibition at her gallery last week. Robert's wife Irina joined us. We looked at the pictures, mingled, sipped wine and listened to the speechifying, which was lost on me because I don't understand Russian, but that's all right.
Robert has tutorial sessions with Masha four times a week, and he usually brings me along for two of them. I'm the unofficial "arts and crafts" guy among our group of teachers owing to nothing more than the fact that I've done a little bit of painting in my time. Masha and I paint watercolors together. Today we painted a pink castle and made a complete, total mess of it. But when I asked Masha what she wanted to paint, she said "a castle," so a castle it was. And any time you ask Masha what color she wants something to be, she'll always say "pink." So a pink castle it was, and as I say, a mess.
So the idea is partly to have me do watercolor painting with Masha and encourage her to discuss her painting in English. The other half of the equation is, I don't speak Russian. Robert does,so Masha knows she can talk to him in Russian, and she does. But the idea is to get her to speak English, so Robert brings me along in the hope that Masha will realize I don't speak Russian and talk to me in English.
So far it hasn't worked very well. Masha has found a compromise: not talking at all. Well, let's just say that getting her to talk English is like trying to coax a cat out of a tree. This is kind of a shame because she actually knows quite a lot, and her brother Kolya, a few years older, speaks English quite well. Robert has been working with both of them for about a year.
Masha and I are getting used to each other. She likes Robert a lot because she has fun with him. They laugh and play and watch videos. I'm the art teacher, and I think until now Masha has regarded me as too serious, and besides, she's four and has a four year-old's attention span. She is going to find painting entertaining for about five minutes, then want to go do something else.
But our lessons are two hours long, and I've been charged with filling up the first half of the lesson. So Masha and I have been devoting a full hour to painting, which doesn't really work too well. After a conference with Robert, I decided to try a different plan of action today. When Masha and I were done making our pink castle mess, instead of asking if she wanted to do another painting, I asked if she wanted to watch a video on her iPad.
I didn't have to ask twice: she LOVES watching videos on her iPad, as do all kids and a dismaying number of adults I've seen lately, including one guy who was in a rowboat in a park with his girlfriend. She was rowing the boat and he was sitting in the stern playing with his iPad. Tell me chivalry isn't dead.
So Masha got her wish. We put the paints and brushes aside and she watched some videos: "Gogo," the little cartoon character who teaches English in a somewhat annoying (if you ask me) British accent; a Disney video about the weather; a couple of phonics programs and a game or two, including one in which Masha has to place each animal she sees in its proper place in the picture. If she puts it in the wrong place, a rabbit pops up and says "Uh-uh." If she puts it in the right place, another rabbit pops up and blows a trumpet.
In one of our early lessons I was painting geometric shapes in watercolor and teaching Masha their names and colors: "yellow square," "pink square," "green square," "purple triangle."
That last turned out to be a tactical error on my part. Masha decided that she really likes the sound of these two English words together: "purple triangle." She likes to say it: "Purple triangle!" In fact she likes to say it SO much that when she starts to get tired, or wants to let me know that she's done painting for the day and wants to watch Gogo, she resorts to the "purple triangle" defense.
I'll point to the yellow sun. "What is it, Masha?"
"Purple triangle!"
I'll point to the green grass. "What is it, Masha?"
"Purple triangle!" she laughs
I'll point to the blue sky. "Masha, what is it?"
"PURPLE TRIANGLE!" by now she's in hysterics, she thinks this is so funny.
That's when it's time to get Robert back in the room. He knows what Masha likes. They skip rope, they play ball; Masha talks Russian to Robert despite repeated reminders that these lessons are for speaking English.
I guess I'll just stay over here in my corner and paint ... an orange triangle.
Masha likes orange almost as much as she likes pink. She only likes to SAY "purple."
One of our regular pupils is a little girl named Masha. Masha is four, and a very pretty little thing, which you understand immediately when you meet her mom, Oksana. Oksana is quite lovely, and actually her husband Roman, Masha's dad, is a good-looking chap as well. Masha got lucky in her gene pool. They're also very nice people. I don't know what business Masha's dad is in, but her mother runs an art gallery. My boss Robert and I attended an exhibition at her gallery last week. Robert's wife Irina joined us. We looked at the pictures, mingled, sipped wine and listened to the speechifying, which was lost on me because I don't understand Russian, but that's all right.
Robert has tutorial sessions with Masha four times a week, and he usually brings me along for two of them. I'm the unofficial "arts and crafts" guy among our group of teachers owing to nothing more than the fact that I've done a little bit of painting in my time. Masha and I paint watercolors together. Today we painted a pink castle and made a complete, total mess of it. But when I asked Masha what she wanted to paint, she said "a castle," so a castle it was. And any time you ask Masha what color she wants something to be, she'll always say "pink." So a pink castle it was, and as I say, a mess.
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| My teaching tools. |
So the idea is partly to have me do watercolor painting with Masha and encourage her to discuss her painting in English. The other half of the equation is, I don't speak Russian. Robert does,so Masha knows she can talk to him in Russian, and she does. But the idea is to get her to speak English, so Robert brings me along in the hope that Masha will realize I don't speak Russian and talk to me in English.
So far it hasn't worked very well. Masha has found a compromise: not talking at all. Well, let's just say that getting her to talk English is like trying to coax a cat out of a tree. This is kind of a shame because she actually knows quite a lot, and her brother Kolya, a few years older, speaks English quite well. Robert has been working with both of them for about a year.
Masha and I are getting used to each other. She likes Robert a lot because she has fun with him. They laugh and play and watch videos. I'm the art teacher, and I think until now Masha has regarded me as too serious, and besides, she's four and has a four year-old's attention span. She is going to find painting entertaining for about five minutes, then want to go do something else.
But our lessons are two hours long, and I've been charged with filling up the first half of the lesson. So Masha and I have been devoting a full hour to painting, which doesn't really work too well. After a conference with Robert, I decided to try a different plan of action today. When Masha and I were done making our pink castle mess, instead of asking if she wanted to do another painting, I asked if she wanted to watch a video on her iPad.
I didn't have to ask twice: she LOVES watching videos on her iPad, as do all kids and a dismaying number of adults I've seen lately, including one guy who was in a rowboat in a park with his girlfriend. She was rowing the boat and he was sitting in the stern playing with his iPad. Tell me chivalry isn't dead.
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| This thing's not a tool, it's a life saver. |
So Masha got her wish. We put the paints and brushes aside and she watched some videos: "Gogo," the little cartoon character who teaches English in a somewhat annoying (if you ask me) British accent; a Disney video about the weather; a couple of phonics programs and a game or two, including one in which Masha has to place each animal she sees in its proper place in the picture. If she puts it in the wrong place, a rabbit pops up and says "Uh-uh." If she puts it in the right place, another rabbit pops up and blows a trumpet.
In one of our early lessons I was painting geometric shapes in watercolor and teaching Masha their names and colors: "yellow square," "pink square," "green square," "purple triangle."
That last turned out to be a tactical error on my part. Masha decided that she really likes the sound of these two English words together: "purple triangle." She likes to say it: "Purple triangle!" In fact she likes to say it SO much that when she starts to get tired, or wants to let me know that she's done painting for the day and wants to watch Gogo, she resorts to the "purple triangle" defense.
I'll point to the yellow sun. "What is it, Masha?"
 |
| Well, at least it isn't purple. |
"Purple triangle!"
I'll point to the green grass. "What is it, Masha?"
"Purple triangle!" she laughs
I'll point to the blue sky. "Masha, what is it?"
"PURPLE TRIANGLE!" by now she's in hysterics, she thinks this is so funny.
That's when it's time to get Robert back in the room. He knows what Masha likes. They skip rope, they play ball; Masha talks Russian to Robert despite repeated reminders that these lessons are for speaking English.
I guess I'll just stay over here in my corner and paint ... an orange triangle.
Masha likes orange almost as much as she likes pink. She only likes to SAY "purple."
Priceless...
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