English benchmarks

The grade 7's have started writing their exams. First up? English benchmarks. Officially they have to write three papers on one day (27th of October, for this year) but as Japari is a remedial school, we have decided that they need some extra time, and they will do one paper every day.

On Tuesday it was time for English comprehension (reading). The theme of this year's English benchmarks (comprehension, poetry and visual literacy) is 'Robin Hood'. On Tuesday Ingrid asked me to cover for the maths teacher for the morning (uh-oh, not maths again!), but immediately after she had asked me that Andrea asked me to help her and take some stuff to her classroom. (I was supposed to help her out that day, and take a look at the benchmark for Wednesday.) I ... tried to get the grade 7's to calm down, but without work for them to do (and half of them not even having their books with them) I was soon lost as to what to do. (And the maths/music classroom is HUGE which didn't help either.) After about 10 minutes of looking lost and just telling the class 'Go study, something - anything. Your exams are next week, so I'm sure you have work to do.' (Which was pointedly ignored by all but two learners ... fun fun fun.) I decided to go find Ingrid to ask what they had to do (she had told me there would be worksheets on the desk for me to hand out - there were no worksheets).

I couldn't find Ingrid so I went over to Andrea's classroom (who luckily didn't have any class at the time). She decided we would start the benchmark early, to give me something to do... and give the class some extra time for all the work they had to do. (Phew!)
The rest of the day we worked on the benchmark with both grade seven groups. Once again it showed that the grade 7B's are so much faster and simply know more than the grade 7L's... I hope my cousin managed to do alright (he's in 7L...)

Today was more fun! Poetry benchmark (a bit easier, in my opinion) and one grade six lesson. I took the second group to do the poetry benchmark by myself (and got a compliment to boot! Andrea told me I did *really* well! Seems like I'm getting somewhere with this teaching thing.). I also did one of the grade six groups ... a social science lesson on the 'kingdoms of Southern Africa' (Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Thulamela... Luckily I've been listening to lessons about this for the past 3 months, so I do know something on the subject...). They just had to fill in a worksheet which was a kind of summary of everything they have learnt during the term (and for a grade, too).
Random facts: Mapungubwe means "Place of jackals", Zimbabwe means 'stone buildings' and Thulamela means 'place of giving birth'. In all three kingdoms (different time periods) the royals/leaders/kings lived separately from the common people (either on a hill or in an enclosure). All kingdoms traded - with groups of people as far away as China and the middle east! You can visit the ruins of Mapungubwe and Thulamela in South Africa (both are in the Limpopo province). You know what, I love teaching things like history, geography and life orientation - it's so much fun!

After that I helped one of the grade seven students (who was absent yesterday) with his English Comprehension benchmark - we sat in the library and I had to give him the same hints and explain questions as we had done for the others. After that.. it was time to go home :) But not without waiting another hour and half for my aunt, again (after phoning her and she told us 'I'm 5 minutes away!' it still took an hour... that's 'African time' for you!) and sharing my chocolate with the 'Japarians' who were still waiting to be fetched. (And seeing them 'play' a rather rough game of 'spearing' anyone who was walking around... Really, teenagers, sometimes...)

Later during the break some of the other teachers remarked on my English (that it's so great and all that ;)) and even better... When I was helping the one student with the benchmark he needed to catch up on... Several grade seven students invaded the library and handed me... a slab of chocolate! "From Mrs L, for teaching yesterday." A thank you for taking her classes - now that's sweet! (pun 100 % intended) Too bad it was mint chocolate (everyone seems to love that here in SA... I don't, really.)

I'm going to miss this school! Luckily, though, I've been invited to the end of the year/Christmas lunch! I'm sure that'll be fun!