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Kate is Heather's (my boss') daughter. She's probably the best student in the class. She understands everything really well compared to the others, and usually does her homework. I'm not sure if this is the result of having her mother as a principal or if she would be this way anyway.
Jenny is a giggler. I ask her if she's sitting on a feather a lot of the time, and of course I had to explain what this meant the first time I used the expression. Jenny speaks very well and understands spoken English well, but her reading comprehension isn't as good. She has asked her mother to take a month or two off from classes at Kate LA, but Heather wants me to get her to stay because she is a good student who tries hard, despite how good a student she thinks she is.
Sally is a very quiet girl (in class). She seems to understand the majority of what I say in class, although, like the others, she doesn't always know the answers to my questions. Her homework is pretty good, but she's kind of a sloppy mcslop slop, a trait of which I am trying to cure her.
Kate, Jenny, and Sally are also in one of my storybook classes, which meets Tuesdays at 8pm. We're finishing Ella Enchanted next week, and I think they're all very glad to get on to a new book. I really enjoyed this book, but it is way too advanced for them. I think even native English speakers their age wouldn't quite get it, and would need a couple years.
On my first day of teaching, Sue asked me to give her an English name. Her real name is Chae Eun, but she said that was too long, and she wanted a short English name. Sue was the shortest name I cold think of for a girl. She is a hard worker. She sometimes has trouble with the homework, but she asks me questions about things she doesn't understand. I'm glad she's developed this habit.
From left to right, this is Kate, Sue, Sally, and Jenny. They were all running around the classroom instead of crowding together, so I just snapped this shot real quick. They're going to get pissed at me if they ever see this.
Tana was transferred to this class from the lower level OCR class about three weeks ago because she found it too easy and she tested at the same level as Kate. She's a wicked slacker, though. Of all the homework I've assigned since she joined the class, she's handed in about a third of it. Strangely, though, she was overdiligent in the essay I had them write over the past couple weeks. I wanted them to write and essay and make an oral presentation on a topic of their choice. I had them do a rough draft and a second draft of the essay, and she passed both of those in on time, I think. Because most of the second drafts were mostly free of mistakes, I didn't make them complete a final draft. Tana passed in a third draft, anyway, though. So I corrected it. Then today, the week following the actual oral report, she passed in a fourth draft. It strikes me peculiar given her lack of other homework, and that she didn't even prepare for her oral presentation and did kind of a lousy job at that.
This is Tana. She was hiding behind my desk for some reason while I was taking the picture of the other girls. What a weirdo.
Chris is an odd boy. Lissette, the teacher I replaced, warned me about his tendency to sleep during class. She said at first she tried to keep him awake, but gave up after a while. Stephen, our Canadian teacher, told me he's actually seen him fall asleep midsentence. Apparently he's been tested for narcolepsy, but does not have the condition. He's just a very tired boy. I asked him how much sleep he gets, and he says almost six hours. For a fifth grader, that's wicked shitty, as we all know. The other girls make fun of him a lot. They make loud noises to wake him up, and talk about how much he sleeps openly in class. They make fun of him a lot. I try to get them to stop, but you know kids. I hope he'll get better treatment in his new class. He's quite smart when he can keep his eyes open. The couple classes he stayed awake for me, he really dominated. He sucks at homework, though. He didn't even bother to take part in the whole essay/oral presentation project, and he forgets or doesn't do his homework about 60% of the time. Too bad.
This is Chris, of course. I tried to get the whole class together in one picture, but the girls were being assholes, and kept running away every time he got close. Poor guy. He said he wanted to kill them.
