The Game

2-5-09

Sometimes the stars fall into alignment in just such a way as to aid me in having more than too much fun with my students here. I had one of those days recently.

My favorite game to play with my students is called ‘Slap the Board.’ It does have educational value, there is vocabulary, listening, friendly competition, teamwork, and the all-important fun factor which, for me, is the main component of language learning. I say this because I still remember with a very clear picture sitting in a coffee shop with my Khmer teacher and my peers in training, learning about comparatives and superlatives by talking trash to each other in Khmer. Fun. Educational. Set into my brain.

In ‘Slap the Board,’ there is a nice selection of words written onto the chalkboard and one student from each team standing with their backs to the board, until, of course, I call out one of the words and they turn and frantically search until one of them hits it and a point is awarded to the team. Sounds great, you say? It is! There is usually massive participation from all of the students in the class, as they yell “above,” “below,” and point frantically while the students touch various words in hopes that they are touching the correct one. It is loud and boisterous, and I am sure you are wondering why I cannot play it all the time.

There are actually several reasons that the game is virtually unplayable. The most conducive environment to play it in is in my 10A/10B classes – I join the two classes and the seats are bursting with students, but the classroom is cement and relatively sound proof, especially since there is an empty classroom in between us gamers and the actually studying 11G class. However, in the rest of my 10th grade classes, star alignment must take place. Every other classroom is made of wood and instead of the walls in between classes going all the way up to the roof, they instead only go about halfway, leaving a large sound traveling gap between all three of the classes in any given building. Teaching in the middle classroom is usually a battle of the voices for that given reason. Imagine a huge game distracting two extra classes instead of just the one you are intending to! Plus, it is my opinion that the more the merrier, so I like to put two classes together to lighten spirits and let them see some new faces.

Life was good to me this day. 10C, my favorite class of all, was having a ‘break,’ which means that their teacher didn’t show up, 10D was who we were to teach, and 10E had gone home for lack of teachers/energy/class (take your pick of any the excuses). It was perfect, so I somehow got some of the 10C’ers into the 10D class, wrote up my words, and let the games begin. Sometimes I choose sides of the class as teams, or the different classes as the teams, but this time I decided on a battle of the sexes, in honor of the upcoming V day, of course.

And on we played, a very close game of girls versus guys aided a bit by my theories on who should win and if I can aid that at all. Sometimes I choose mis-matched pairs, or try to help out the girls a bit based on where she is looking. It is my opinion that the women here need a little self-esteem, beginning with grade 10 board-slapping. And so, through careful work on a tie-breaker at the last minute of the game, the women won and the boys were crushed. And so we asked, “Ladies, as the winning team, what would you like the losing team to do?” The answer was almost unanimous. “Sing!”

And so the campaign was on. The boys, unused to their position as losers and unwilling to sing, refused all of the wild attempts I made to get them to sing. My favorite kids, like Hin, a boy with high cheekbones and a sweet disposition who’s had a scrape on his face all week from a moto fall, Sophy, a boy still growing into his body as awkwardly as he can but making up for it with pure charm that only a 10th grader can have, Poin, the troublemaker who will skip my class right in front of me – walking in front of the window as if I am blind of have somehow forgotten that he is in the class, and the rest of the entertaining class, all refused to get up, saying that they can’t, they can’t! The bell rang, signifying the end of the hour, and I saw my fun day draining as the boys’ refusal left a dull taste in the air.

But then…As head of the class, Sophy had to get up to deliver the attendance book to the teacher desk, where my co-teacher was impatiently watching my antics. As he began to return to his seat, I rushed over to his seat, splaying out my arms to prevent him from sitting down, leaving him standing in front of his mates. He grudgingly accepted the victory and managed with a few words what I had been unable to – he got the entire male population of the class to stand up and stand behind him

The girls were loving it, especially as he and another student (supposedly, the one who is actually good at singing) began their rendition of my favorite song in current circulation: Pram Bouan Dola - $5000. It is a song about a man who loves a woman and in order to pay her dowry sells off everything he owns – his moto, his tractor, his house – but it still isn’t enough, and he withdraws into sadness and depression at his lost love. Granted, not the best lyrics or message, but a pretty catchy tune, with a emotion tortured voice that wails his pain to the world.

They sang, Hin danced, they all watched me (I dance and act excitable about just about everything) and the girls ate up their victory. It was a pretty excellent and star-aligned day…