English for Chinese nursery school graduation

Just had an entertaining lesson with my Chinese 6 year old in Xi'an, China, over Zoom. He has been asked to be the master of ceremonies for his nursery school graduation. His mum had asked me to get him to practice his lines on Thursday but unfortunately we had to give up on that lesson as the internet from my phone (there was no ZESA) was too slow. Today was better and he had me trying not to smile as he had a battle of wills with his mum sitting next to him, over his pronunciation. The word "glorious" was particularly challenging for him. I had to offer a few corrections as some of the English wasn't actually right. By the end of the lesson he had had more than enough and started bellowing out glorious randomly in his own interpretation of how to say it. I got called an alligator as he tried to remember "see you later alligator". I thought his graduation was yesterday but there are still two weeks. Two weeks of continuing to practice this. He has memorised the words (and there are a lot of them) pretty impressively. I don't think I could remember all of that in Chinese.

There have been some funny moments at school this week. The one little girl, Melissa*, in grade three got to school early and decided to give the other early arrivals a spelling test. For number three she called out, "Number three, Melissa. Melissa is a lovely girl." With lots of people leaving the country one student announced his family was leaving the country. When asked where they were going to, he replied Victoria Falls. He then corrected this to Ruwa. We are doing cross country for sports day at the end of term and one student re-named it "running across the country".

Have started my NILD assignments already, even though the course only starts on Monday. Gives me a head start on my first essay. I am very fortunate that I don't get power cuts (touch wood), where I am house sitting as it would otherwise be really difficult to fit in the online work around teaching. The rest of the country is really suffering from crippling power cuts at the moment, my mum at home included. The internet seems to be doing funny things too. Got cut off on a skype board meeting for Xen Arts on Thursday. They did a great intercultural dance project exchange in Hunstanton in Norfolk. I was just filling them in on the current situation in Zim for a possible dance outreach project here when I got cut off with loss of wifi.