I seem to have half the village coming for classes this summer. I have 13 hours of classes and I have at least one other child who is interested and I have an unspecified number coming this morning, which I may need to split into smaller groups.
Two of my original students have been recommended to go into a bilingual stream when they go to secondary school (this is regarded as very good), so I hope that this isn’t setting high expectations amongst the parents. I think that these two were probably naturally good at languages anyway. The bilingual stream is actually multi lingual, as they learn Spanish, French and English concurrently. This follows how they learn in primary school, where they learn English and French from day one. Most of the youngsters say that they find French quite easy as there are lots of similarities with Spanish, however they find English quite difficult and they need to be of the same level in both French and English to pass their exams, which I think is where the interest is coming from. Of course, I say English, however it is of course, American. I have to remember that they are taught dates the wrong way round, and the past simple of ‘to dream’ is dreamed, not dreamt. However oddly they are taught coloUr and not color.
The youngest ones are five, and one started crying when she came into the ‘classroom’. I think that the giant picture of Moulty, our sheep, glaring down at her might have compounded her nervousness. Hello Kitty is a quick remedy, however, and colouring Hello Kitty in different colours soon cheered her up. Just wish she’d followed the colours I was saying and not doing their own thing. I will hide the coloured pens next week as they spend too much time on the colouring. I’m also going to see if I can get one of my other students to help me with the young ones. I’ve had other very young ones, however they’ve had loads of confidence and haven’t seemed to worry that they don’t understand a word that I have been saying. These two just sit there on the verge of blubbing so they may need a little extra help.
No news on the puppy front so we are expecting to have to take the small ones to the pound. They broke into the chicken run, and worried the chickens. They weren’t aggressive, just wanted to play, however their boisterous puppy play would have killed one of the chickens if Ian hadn’t heard the commotion. Since then we’ve had to keep them in the barn, which isn’t giving them a great quality of life. I’m glad that we didn’t bring them into the house as we’ve been able to keep thinking of them as being temporary guests only. We’ll continue looking for a home for the small mastin. He’s not a problem and seems quite happy just mooching around the back yard.
Bob has been on antibiotics for a bladder infection. I noticed that he was weeing when he walked, which he’d been doing for a while, but had started leaving a trail in the house too. The vet said that he had a slight temperature and his bladder was swollen, and gave us antibiotics, which seem to have done the trick. Bob gets bladder problems when he’s stressed, however I really don’t think he has much to be stressed about at the moment!