Mind Maps

In this final week of teaching for Vanessa, we worked on mind-maps. If you are unfamiliar with them, or you call them something else in your country, let me explain. You take a subject and put it in the middle of the page, then draw lines branching out and write as many things to do with that subject as you can. We did English mind-maps. The idea was that they would come up with as many things related to a subject (for example, car) that they could. They were not allowed to use dictionaries or the various books they had. They could share their ideas and discuss it with each other, and ask us anything and for the most part we would answer. If they could give us an answer, but didn't know how to spell it. That was fine, we would help them spell it.

First, we did the example of a house on the board, with every student having to give one answer. A house was easy, they could have pretty much anything really. The different rooms, furniture, pets, all sorts. Then in their books they had to do car. I was really impressed with what they knew. They first did the easy ones, different colours. Then they did 'wheels' and 'windows' and things like this. Some of the kids did brands and some were able to do 'brakes' which really impressed me.

Doing this took up the whole lesson. That's fine. We have plenty more with them this week. So you may be asking, what's the point of doing the mind map? They clearly know plenty of words, and you have said many times, they know lots of words. Well, part two of the mind map is taking what they have done and turning into simple sentences. The next lesson began and we worked together as a group, putting up all the answers they had come up with in the last lesson. There were a lot. Now we throw them into the deep end. They clearly know what's going on. They know words, you keep pushing them bit by bit and they just get it. A few minutes is all it takes and for one it clicks. Then it clicks with the rest of them. There was only one colour written on the board; red.

"Right!" I said, looking over the board at the answers. "What colour is the car?" I did my little, walk around the class room thing, repeating the question several times. "Colour?" "What colour?" (I just want to say at this point, these are the moments I loved most of all when teaching out there). Only about two minutes passed before I could see the cogs going for one of the girls, not the usual one, another girl who has slowly been coming out of her box.

"Res?" I know what she means. I smile and tell her to stand up. "Oooowwwww!" She stands up and I walk up to the board.

"What colour?"

"Res?"

I point at the D in red

"Re-D?"

"YES!!! Well done!"

On the other half of the board I write the question. "What colour is the car?" We repeat the question several times and I 'ini-meni-mini-mo' a few volunteers to stand up and repeat the question. I write down the answer. "The car is red." We repeat it a few more times.

Now, do they actually understand what the question is? Pick one of the smartest out. Pandetta. "What colour is the desk?" She pulls her 'why pick me? I don't know!!! Owwww!' face. Not having any of that. I'll let you think for a minute. Repeat the question a couple more times. Then it hits her. She slaps down on the desk, eyes wide realising what I'm asking.

"Brown!"

"Yes!! Sit down!! Very Good!! Okay! Ini-meni-mini-mo, catch a tiger, by the toe, if he hollers, let him go. Ini-meni-mini..... mo! Stand up! Okay... what colour is the sky?"

"Ummm....."

Others spin around, all eyes on this little guy as he really tries to think. Not ten seconds go past and one of the kids 'whisper shouts' "Blue!" He looks at me...

"Blue?"

"Haha yes, sit down. Stand up!" I shout over to the girl who gave him the answer. I do a sweeping "SHHHHHHHHHHHHH" to the rest of the class. "What colour is the tree?"

A wide smile appears on her face. She pulls a face, a 'I think you are asking me a trick question, but I know the answer anyway so HA!' and she says;

"Brown and green!"

I am now jumping around for joy. So happy. They've got it!

This mind map has taken words they know, and I'm going to turn them into short sentences and teach them how to both ask and answer questions with the words they already know. From here on, it starts to get more difficult for them, but we still manage to keep it fun and exciting.