My bag of tricks

The life of a traveling teacher is, well, tough.  Have you ever entertained a child without toys?  How about in a foreign language?  Have you ever tried to teach a 5 year old anything?  Take it from me, it's no walk in the park (which ironically is actually quite tough for me these days).  If you find yourself in my shoes, here are a few tricks that might assist you in your seemingly impossible task.

One thing to know about teaching kids is to keep them constantly occupied with as many varying activities as possible.  If you're doing an activity with a younger student and they start to fidget or stare off into space, change the activity.  Don't just plan one, two, or even three activities for an entire hour with a private lesson, have at least 6 to 7 activities to do for that hour.  Make sure you have a back-up.  Here are some of the tricks I carry with me everywhere.

1.  A Ball.  Just a small, soft ball will do the trick.  I use it as a reward game with me students.  Usually works best with two or more people.  I keep a tallied score chart throughout the lesson that tells me who "won" each activity and at the end of the day they play a game of football or have a shootout.  If one kid has 6 and the other has 1, it doesn't matter, the kid with 6 gets 6 shots on the kid with one.

2.  Post-its or stickies.  These are great for body parts or room labeling.  You write the word and they have to find out where to put it.  Its great for review games too.

3.  Guess Who.  My beautiful, smart, and all-around amazing editor of a girlfriend brought a travel size "Guess Who" when we were in the states and it has been great for private lessons.  The students love it and they learn physical characteristics pretty well.

4.  Phase 10 / Uno.  Any type of game that makes their brains think doubly is good.   This one combines the most basic of vocabulary, numbers and colors.  I usually use it as a transition game into another activity.

5.  A book in English with lots of pictures.  One thing you'd never believe is that a lot of my lessons love to read.  So they're only 8 and they butcher words, at least they're trying and loving every second of it.

Best of luck to you all!

Basic Spanish
café solo - black coffee

Advanced Spanish
Eres una bocazás - your a bigmouth/ you have a big mouth

Basque
Café esnea (is-neh-ah) - coffee with milk

British English
to be in a strop - he/she is in a mood