Room 18

This is our ESOL classroom.  The teacher is Mrs Oosterbeek and the teacher aides in the room are Ms Tere and Ms Lina.

Our English Language Assistants (Teacher Aides) have been doing extensive Professional Development in Room 18 over the past few years. This provides them with strategies to help the children that they support in the classrooms. Last term they were learning more about ways to help children with their writing. As part of this, they looked at the different types of writing. When focusing on narrative writing, they were given the task to complete a story. Here are the creative stories that they wrote:

This is the story that they needed to finish in their own way: (from Ministry of Education Working with English Language Learners)

Arthur and the Egg

Arthur Littlejohn had been taught to be a very careful person.

Then came the day that he found the enormous egg.

The egg, with its silvery sheen, was lying in the pines where Arthur often went for an evening walk.

Arthur felt a sudden unfamiliar fizz of excitement at the sight of it.

Careful Arthur was going to walk right past it, without even touching it, but the fizzing excitement inside him changed his mind. 

Something would hatch from this wonderful egg and he would be the first to know what that something was.

The egg was so big he had to put both arms round it to carry it home.

This is how they completed the story:

 

Arthur carried the egg carefully to his house and set it on the table.

He waited and waited for the egg to hatch. But he fell asleep.

(Apii left this open ended and she is going to encourage the children to carry this on with their own ideas)

By Apii Barratt

So Arthur treaded carefully.

A bee was buzzing around nearby. Arthur was terrified of bees. Feeling anxious, his pace quickened, holding the egg, firm to his chest.

Then suddenly, SPLAT! Arthur had tripped over, crashing down on top of the egg.

Creamy yolk had splattered everywhere. Arthur was covered in it from head to toe. Poor Arthur. What a yolky mess.

By Tere Carpentier

Thrilled and excited at this great and precious find, Arthur clutched the big egg with his ten, long white fingers and gently lifted it up from the bed of flat, lush green grass.

He held the egg carefully to his bosom, like a baby yearning for its mother’s warmth, and slowly started to walk back home. At each pace, he avoided any fallen, dead branches which lay on the golden, brown leaves covering the bare naked ground.

On the way home, he passed parents with their children and adults walking their dogs who were all enjoying the warmth of the sun at the park.

It seemed everyone was curious and anxious to know what Arthur was holding. They surrounded him like a swarm of ants. As soon as they found out what he had, they started taking pictures of the egg with their cell phones and sent them out to their families and friends.

Soon the news of the egg spread out like wildfire around the park.

When the Park Ranger heard the news, he jumped into his white, four wheel drive truck and drove out to where Arthur was situated.

The Park Ranger came over dressed in his starched, white uniform, and politely asked Arthur to hand him the egg. This was no ordinary egg. It was an ostrich egg.

Sadly, Arthur handed him the egg. The Park Ranger said, “Thank you.”  Then he drove away.

Poor Arthur plodded home with no egg, unhappy and hugely disappointed.

By Maara Tapoki