Classroom Activities Part II: Family and Descriptions

At some point in my teaching experience here, it dawned on me that although the new English curriculum has a lot of topics for their students to learn, the Malagasy government has focused English learning in the public school system on tourism and writing. This means there is a significant lack of speaking, listening, and reading comprehension – which is strange when you realize that writing and reading are related – as well as a lack of useful vocabulary and topics. Being a supplemental class focusing on listening and speaking, I decided to take it upon myself to engage those topics of the English language that my students would not otherwise get to on their own or through their normal channel of education. One of these topics I decided to cover was how to describe family members.

The lesson was simple enough. My goal was for my students to be able to describe members of their family using a physical description and some words to describe their personality or character. I began my lesson by drawing the scariest looking family on the planet. I’m a behavioral economist, not an artist. Consequently, my lack of artistic skills limits me to the use of stick figures with ridiculously exaggerated features. So, I quickly drew my little stick figure family with their exaggerated features and had my students describe each one with the words they knew. I wrote these words on the board and categorized them, explaining the difference between a big nose and a long nose, short, tall, and average height, and fat, big, and large. The highlight of the lesson was teaching them the “boop” which one says when one “boops” the nose of someone else. It was an essential part of the lesson.

Afterwards, I wrote a list of personality and character traits and either described them or gave them the French translations. Most of them weren’t overly difficult.

Generous – selfish

Nice/gentle/caring – mean

Serious – bubbly

Talkative – shy/timid

Intelligent/smart – stupid

Funny – boring

Interesting – dull

Humble – prideful

Outgoing – reserved

Active – lazy

Honest – dishonest

Etc.

I then gave my students about 10min to describe one member of their family using two sentences to describe them physically and two sentences to describe their personality or character. I demonstrated with my own family, changing it each time and making them laugh when I explain how tall my little brother is compared to me. I’ve told you many times that I am a giant here, so the idea that I’m related to someone as tall as Ethan seemed crazy to them.

10min sounds like a long time. But honestly, many of the students couldn’t always produce what I asked them. At the end of the class, each person had to stand up and describe the person they selected. Malagasy students are generally introverted, especially when they’re alone or have to stand up and present. There is a cultural fear of being wrong or making a mistake. Malagasy also dislike correcting others and will just let the mistakes of their superiors (which includes me) slide without a word. Needless to say, getting students to speak English in class is like pulling teeth and requires an ungodly amount of patience which I am certain I only have through divine intervention.

Anyways, I found it interesting about whom the students described. For instance, boys typically described their brothers or their mothers whereas girls typically described their sisters and fathers, and were more prone to describe their mothers than boys were their brothers. Most of the boys described their mothers as talkative and caring whereas they described their brothers as funny and active. Girls often described their fathers as serious but generous and their sisters as beautiful and intelligent. Every now and then, I would have a student be brutally honest. “I describe my mother. She is short, chunky, and has a brown hair. She is talkative and boring.” Ouch! “I describe my father. He is a tall and has a short hair brown. He is fat. He is serious and shy.” Oh man! "I describe my sister. She is tall and has the long brown a hair with the black eyes. She is more beautiful than me. She is talkative and mean.” Not holding back! “I describe my brother. He is short and skinny. He is named Fidy. He is a short hair brown. He is bubbly and outgoing. He is funny and stupid.” Yikes!

When all is said and done, I review the vocabulary one more time for pronunciation and ask if they have more questions before wishing them a good week and heading out the door to the sound of, “goodbye! See you! Veloma!” and an assortment of other phrases they’ve memorized.

Plenty of other lesson activities are on their way, or at least the interesting ones. By the time I’m done sharing them all with you, I will be done teaching at the lycée and will be focusing on visiting English clubs and other language schools. There’s also plans to travel again. It is crazy to think that I’m currently scheduled to return to the States at the end of August. Then again, anything could happen in that time. As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.