I love FOG... Well, kinda!

     I had heard that the UAE would get very foggy from time to time. Well, last week I got to experience VERY foggy mornings Sunday-Thursday. It was so foggy that on my way to work I could barely see the cars in front of us and therefore my friend had to drive very slowly. Many cars even pulled over to wait for the fog to clear up. Driving here is scary! People drive extremely fast and tailgate others in order to make them move out of the way. Let me say that even with the fog every once in a while a crazy driver would pass us by going way too fast. The fog even "caused" a 35-car pile-up in Dubai. In all honesty I can't believe that it was only a 35-car pile-up with all the crazy drivers here in the UAE.
       Well the reasons why I love foggy mornings are because most students dodn't arrive to school until 8:30-9. This past week, by the time most arrived it was time for breakfast therefore teaching didn't begin until 9:45. Now, don't forget that classes end at 12:30 making my day very very short :). To make things even better we are "allowed" to arrive late 9-9:30. "Allowed" because on the day that I did arrive late, according to my Head of Faculty, the vice principal wasn't so happy about it. I wasn't to surprised to hear that even though all week many Arabic teachers arrived late (just one of the inequalities LT's face).
     So yeah, a foggy day has it's benefits, that I love, but it also includes a nerve wrecking drive to work.

Poor visibility on the road due to the fog. 

        I'll try to post more pictures later. My internet is too slow :(.

The Power of Halawa...

       It's amazing to see how much power candy (halawa) has with kids! Last week I decided to create a traffic light signal with smiley, straight, and sad faces to use for classroom management. I've decided to start all of the kids on yellow every morning. During the day if they're participating and behaving I move them to green and if they are not participating and/or misbehaving I move them to red. For those who are on the green smiley face at the end of the day I give them a sticker and candy. If they stayed on yellow they get a sticker only. For those who were moved to red get nothing.

       I felt confident that this strategy would work but, I never thought it would have such amazing results. My students have stopped running away, they now ask to go to the restroom (hammam), they have stopped eating during class time, and whenever they hear my candy jar rattle they sit on the carpet like perfect little soldiers!! I still have a couple who will want to do whatever they want during the day but as soon as I start complementing those who are behaving and working by moving them to green they stop and quickly do what they're supposed to.

       Today for example as soon as I grabbed the candy jar the students started whispering "halawa" to each other and sitting down. During the day several students asked me to use the restroom and I would answer with "red?" or "yellow?" and they would smile and sit down. Whenever I wanted their attention I would start walking to the traffic light signal and say "mumtez" (excellent/good job) and move students to green if they were doing a good job.

       At the end of the day I have the entire class sit down and I call them one by one to give them they're rewards. I also talk to the ones in yellow and red and tell them what they need to improve. I've had students cry every day if they were moved red and didn't receive anything. But even with the ones who cry there has been an improvement. Last week, for example, I had students lay on the floor crying others even kicked and screamed. But as the week progressed all the tantrums stopped and last Thursday and today I only saw tears.

       I am trying to make learning connections even with my rewards. Last week I taught the class the letter "M" and the sound that it makes. Since M&M's have the letter "M" I chose to give them M&M's as their reward. This week I will give them Skittles as well as stickers since I am teaching them the letter "S." I hope my class continues to improve and learn more and more each week. For now I'm very happy that I have managed to have, for the most part, control of my class! :D

Halawa= my sanity

Teacher and Referee

       Let me begin by saying that I LOVE my job! I feel very blessed at having been placed in an awesome school with awesome LT's, Arabic teachers, and admin. I've been given the liberty to arrange and decorate Ashjan's classroom however I want. And, so far whenever she is in the classroom with me I can count on her for anything. With that being said I must also add that things work VERY differently over here and like any job it can get frustrating at times. Wow, did I have a reality check last week...
      Last week was the first week for the students. Their second week of school and my third week of work just ended. Well these past two weeks I've, along with the rest of the LT's and teachers, have been going along with the flow of things. What that means is that we really have not had a schedule to follow everyday. I'll usually find out in the morning if we have some type of assembly or activity for the kids. At the last minute the times have also been changed. For the most part I really don't know what's going on which means that my students don't know what's going on either. Because of that I'm getting pretty good at making up activities to fill up time slots. But at the same time I haven't been able to teach routines. How can I if we don't have a schedule with routines to follow? I'm sure next week will be different since we have to start teaching the curriculum.
       This week I've focused on circle time activities such as calendar, alphabet song, numbers, shapes, colors, and a name activity game. The kids have also been working on tracing their name and letter matching. It has been hard communicating with them since I don't speak Arabic. If I'm by myself the kids get up and leave whenever they want and eat whenever they want. Lol, ay ay ay they seriously don't care about listening to me. They run away, sometimes three at a time. Luckily when my Arabic teacher is there I can really count on her to help me manage the class.
       If you're wondering about this posts title and the word referee keep on reading for an explanation. Wow! I have never seen kids fight and hit soooo much! Apart from them leaving the classroom and eating when they want they also fight just as often. I'm constantly breaking up fights or stopping kids from hitting each other. The interesting thing is that if an Arabic teacher sees it they usually stop the fight and hug the kids. Even the ones who were hitting! There are no consequences for misbehaving.
       So yes, things have been very interesting. Luckily last week after having a fit and complaining about work my wonderful sister reminded me of why I'm here and ever since then things have been great. I'm constantly reminding myself that I'm not in the US and therefor have been going with the flow and enjoying myself. I'm also concentrating on the positives and all the things that I LOVE about my job.

Here is a list of some of the things I love about working here:

• Every student and Arabic Teacher can say my name PERFECTLY! (here the kids call you by your first name)
• Everyone is super friendly and helpful.
• All of the LT's are super cool young and from different countries. Canada, US, and New Zealand.
• My students are sooo adorable and cute! They hug me and wave bye to me now. 
• My schedule is the best. Sun-Wed 7:30-1:30pm. and Thurs 7:30-12:30.
• The $$$ of course! HAHAHA.