One day, as usual, me and my fellow teacher, debora were talking about our "today's classes" when I suddenly choked surprised. That day, she taught Red Class, a class for kids (around 6-7yo), about Job, she generally explained many kinds of jobs with a very simple english (what could we expect for 7yo kids to understand about occupation :D).
She started with easy one like "teacher is someone who teaches you in school or courses", "pilot is someone who drives an aeroplane", etc. Then she continued to some term that werent difficult to memorize but not easy to understand, like 'businessman', if we told them about 'business things', it would be useless, so we just said like "businessman is someone who is busy working in a company and wears tidy suit", one of the kid responded "miss, my father is businessman, he has got company", later we found out that his father is toys businessman, then debora continued to a new term, 'housewife', she started explaining, "housewife is someone who works at home, takes care the children and husband, like you and everything in your house...", a kid suddenly responded excitedly, "um, I know.. I know.. so housewife is like my babysitter..."
My friend, debora, was like about to laugh listening to that, but maybe when she saw the kid with a very bright smile thinking that he had given a really smart answer, my friend was touched. Later she added some explanation that housewife is from 'wife' but still the kids thought that housewife is babysitter because they had experienced all the things babysitter did and its exactly the same with explanation about housewife, and a bit pitiful that they couldnt think that housewife is actually 'mother' since they didnt feel that way (and most of their mother worked so they'e not housewife).
Well, later I found out most of mothers nowadays tend to give their children to a baby sitter, some of them could manage everything so well that mother+babysitter become a good combo, and the kid usually grows up done, but some others are too busy so they give their children up to the baby sitter. when they send their kids to a course, they tend to expect too much without noticing the kids development, one dayone of the teacher got a call from a mum, she was a bit upset when she found out that her kid couldnt write "three" properly. The kid had been in ILP for about 7month, its the seventh month, and her mum suddenly appear on the phone. The teacher explained, "We're very sorry for that maam, but thats normal for kid to forget the spelling easilysince they're just 6yo, even in bahasa they tend to make mistakes in writing, about three, although she couldnt spell properly, I'm sure she knows the meaning, for kids we focused more in memorizing the vocabularies, but of course every meeting we practice writing too. Your kid, she's quite good with her vocabulary bank." The mother was like "but my kid has been there for seven month!" well, the kids came with a very weak english and only got about one hour two meetings a week, then the mother expected her to be able to speak like native, impossible. "maam, its useless if you think that studying here is enough, kids memorizing easily, but forgetting easily too, that's why they need to repeat again at home, did you help her all this way?" the teacher add the explanation and the mother answered "well, I already ask the babysitter to do all of that, to help her, I have no time to help her in her study...",
Then, case closed! Her babysitter plus driver always came with her to the course, but they didnt even finish their high school, so how come the mother expect them to help her in studying english. That time I was a bit mad listening to that phone conversation story. We invited the parent to come on report book day once in two month to talk about the kid, but what we met mostly babysitters or drivers, yet the mother's complaining while knowing nothing about the kids progress, tsk...
Those were just some experiences for us as teacher r, thanks to them, I learned a lot :)
She started with easy one like "teacher is someone who teaches you in school or courses", "pilot is someone who drives an aeroplane", etc. Then she continued to some term that werent difficult to memorize but not easy to understand, like 'businessman', if we told them about 'business things', it would be useless, so we just said like "businessman is someone who is busy working in a company and wears tidy suit", one of the kid responded "miss, my father is businessman, he has got company", later we found out that his father is toys businessman, then debora continued to a new term, 'housewife', she started explaining, "housewife is someone who works at home, takes care the children and husband, like you and everything in your house...", a kid suddenly responded excitedly, "um, I know.. I know.. so housewife is like my babysitter..."
My friend, debora, was like about to laugh listening to that, but maybe when she saw the kid with a very bright smile thinking that he had given a really smart answer, my friend was touched. Later she added some explanation that housewife is from 'wife' but still the kids thought that housewife is babysitter because they had experienced all the things babysitter did and its exactly the same with explanation about housewife, and a bit pitiful that they couldnt think that housewife is actually 'mother' since they didnt feel that way (and most of their mother worked so they'e not housewife).
Well, later I found out most of mothers nowadays tend to give their children to a baby sitter, some of them could manage everything so well that mother+babysitter become a good combo, and the kid usually grows up done, but some others are too busy so they give their children up to the baby sitter. when they send their kids to a course, they tend to expect too much without noticing the kids development, one dayone of the teacher got a call from a mum, she was a bit upset when she found out that her kid couldnt write "three" properly. The kid had been in ILP for about 7month, its the seventh month, and her mum suddenly appear on the phone. The teacher explained, "We're very sorry for that maam, but thats normal for kid to forget the spelling easilysince they're just 6yo, even in bahasa they tend to make mistakes in writing, about three, although she couldnt spell properly, I'm sure she knows the meaning, for kids we focused more in memorizing the vocabularies, but of course every meeting we practice writing too. Your kid, she's quite good with her vocabulary bank." The mother was like "but my kid has been there for seven month!" well, the kids came with a very weak english and only got about one hour two meetings a week, then the mother expected her to be able to speak like native, impossible. "maam, its useless if you think that studying here is enough, kids memorizing easily, but forgetting easily too, that's why they need to repeat again at home, did you help her all this way?" the teacher add the explanation and the mother answered "well, I already ask the babysitter to do all of that, to help her, I have no time to help her in her study...",
Then, case closed! Her babysitter plus driver always came with her to the course, but they didnt even finish their high school, so how come the mother expect them to help her in studying english. That time I was a bit mad listening to that phone conversation story. We invited the parent to come on report book day once in two month to talk about the kid, but what we met mostly babysitters or drivers, yet the mother's complaining while knowing nothing about the kids progress, tsk...
Those were just some experiences for us as teacher r, thanks to them, I learned a lot :)
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