Today I had office hours for an hour and a half and played some games with the students who visited the American Center. I teach twice this week and have office hours four times. I taught a class on baseball and went to the carnival by the Mekong yesterday, and had a great time.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Yesterday I organized a class about baseball. Baseball doesn’t exist in Laos, as you can imagine. Our instructor who lead our teacher training classes, Laura, told us to try new things at the American Center to practice teaching techniques for different exercises. I had my students read a basic passage from Kids Britannica about what baseball is and its importance in America. It was difficult to teach a class with a reading passage since the students who visit are at different stages in their language learning journey. I had the class do a True/False exercise regarding the passage, which went pretty well. I then had the class sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” since I thought it was fun and a way to practice pronunciation. Some of the kids were laughing when I played the song. Probably because “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” isn’t exactly in the top 100 songs right now, and it’s pretty old. No matter! I still made the class sing, except the monk. Monks aren’t allowed to sing or dance, so I had the monk in my class listen to the lyrics closely. Then everyone designed their own baseball logo using a city and an animal (e.g., the Luang Prabang tigers). Those that volunteered to present their logo got a sticker. One student had a really cute logo of an elephant with a baseball for a face wearing a baseball hat and holding a bat!

Overall, I think that the class had fun. I didn’t get to use the baseball idiom worksheet I created, so I will teach another lesson on baseball later in the year. (I can teach whatever I want at the American Center.)

Courtesy of Wikipedia

I put the Rangers and Orioles logos on my PowerPoint to serve as inspiration for my class’s designs. (Go Rangers!)

Bumpercars by the Mekong

Last night, several of us went to the carnival by the Mekong after dinner and tried out the bumpercars. The carnival looks like one that you would see in the parking lot of an old mall. (I’m definitely thinking of the carnival in the parking lot of Valley View Mall in Dallas as I write this.)

It cost 20,000 kip to ride the bumpercars, and unlike the U.S., the bumpercars ran for around 10-12 minutes before it was the next group’s turn. I guess the carnival wanted Lao people to feel like they got their money’s worth for the price!

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2023)

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2023)

Card Games

The students at the American Center normally like to play UNO and Headbands during office hours. Occasionally, someone will ask a question about something they wrote for an application, but mostly, it’s just games and conversation. I taught some of the students how to play Go Fish, and they loved it. We played Go Fish 6 times in an hour and a half.

In Laos, students are very polite and always try to respect their teachers. The students apologized whenever they didn’t have a card that I asked for, which I thought was funny and kind of charming. Lao people are just so polite! They were very sweet, and they had a good time playing cards.

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2023)

See how everyone’s fingers are positioned? That’s called a “mini heart” in Laos. Teenagers in Laos do the mini heart a lot in photos.