First Day

Today was my first day of teaching, and what a JOY it was. My students were dressed in their cream and green uniforms and I was greeted by "Good morning Teacher Sarah" accompanied by smiles and bows.

Manly of my students are Cambodian, but I also have Korean students, and a few from Europe as well.
It's a little strange to have children bowing at me and greeting me in such a formal way, but I suppose I'll get used to it.  I also have to become accustomed to speaking slower and using smaller words. Anyone that knows me well could probably attest to the fact that I talk, a lot. Turns out that when teaching a group of English language learners this isn't such a good thing. I was trying to get the students to line up so I was saying something along the lines of "Ok friends, it's time to get in line for gym. We need to be ready when Teacher Jerry comes. Hurry up, form a line." I couldn't understand why my students were acting crazy and disobeying my request. Another teacher, and my roomate Camille, told me that the students refer to physical education as "sports" and that they wouldn't even know what gym meant, and also that they probably didn't even understand what I was saying because I spoke too quickly. She suggested that a simple "LINE UP!" would do, and she was right.                   
I'm adding speech to the list of things I need to simplify.

Life International School

As far as other classroom things go, my behavior management system is already in place and my classroom is a work in progress. The first thing I did was remove these bulky desks called "offices." The students only used them for tests and to put their stuff away, so I thought the extra space was needed more. The following pictures are the before pictures. I will be posting the after shots when I feel the classroom environment is satisfactory :)