It is the end of our first week of midterms, and honestly, I'm surprised how well it went. I was complaining a lot last week about what I considered to be the absurdity of giving a midterm to a three year old, but it turned out to be pretty interesting. This week was the first chance I've had to be one on one with any of my students away from the distractions of the rest of the classroom. It was actually amazing to find out how much some of them get.

I can show a picture card of the letter A and ask "what is this?" and they respond "A!" I can show them a picture of a cat and ask"what is this?" and they say "cat!" or sometimes "c! cat! me-ow" because thats how they've learned it and I think thats an acceptable answer. If I tell them to stand up, they stand up. If I tell them to clap, they clap. Granted, they can't all do all of it, and some of them don't seem to understand anything, but a couple students in each class have more than aced their midterms so far. I'm so impressed with my students. And I'm a little excited to have had this opportunity to really find out what they can do.

One of the highlights of the week was a little girl who, when I said "touch your mouth" put two fingers into her mouth and stretched it into silly faces at me. Of course, I responded in kind. One of the low points was a little boy who was crying even before I called him out to take his test and could only keep crying while I asked him questions. So I wiped the snot off his face and gave him a passing grade (side note: they all get passing grades)

Next week we will finish up the speaking and listening and do "reading and writing" which will be tracing letters and matching letters and pictures. I still think the concentration on the alphabet is probably not the best way to learn a new language, but even so, it seems they are learning something!