Educating Our Students: English Classes

Our teachers do an excellent job teaching students in all six of our schools, and one thing every team enjoys is the chance to observe classes and play with the students at recess. It’s especially great for Every Child sponsors who come to Peredo because they get to interact with the students for whom they are providing an education! As the mission is always looking for ways to use teams to encourage our teachers and students, we recently invited two groups to help us incorporate more English into our schools.

Teams from Kokomo (IN) and Lebanon CC (IN) had a mix of teachers, homeschool and public school students, and others with a love of children and learning. Both teams taught a total of four English classes in the afternoon to our 1st-6th graders in Peredo. The Kokomo team had a sign language teacher, so they were able to incorporate sign with the 4th grade English class. And, they taught one combined English class for our 1st-7th graders in Kapotyer.

Before their trips, the teams learned Creole words for simple greetings and colors, and then they learned an animal or food word to match each of the colors. Next, teams got creative and made plans to teach using signs, coloring pages, balloons, animal masks, pool noodles, songs, and spinners. The students enjoyed all the activities and especially loved the balloons!

Kokomo taught blue, green, brown, black, and red. Lebanon taught orange, yellow, pink, grey, and purple. Both teams taught white. Since the teams were just a couple of weeks apart, Lebanon was able to review colors previously taught with the students to help reinforce learning. And, each student got to take home some learning tools, like this color key chain.

HCO and the teams are vert grateful to Rainbow Resource Center who generously donated enough Crayola markers for both teams to use and then leave with the mission for further classroom use!

One teaching tool used was an original song by Seth and Karen Ely: Koule Bondye Yo / God’s Colors that echoed the English and Creole color words. Pastor Jacqueline helped translate for the team with the 1st -3rd graders in Peredo. Check out this video of the students learning the song!

The next time you are in Peredo, try to talk with our students about colors and animals – in English!