Hello,

I've been teaching preschool age children English in Spain for about 4 months now, and I am having a difficult time with a few classes. I'm used more as a supplement to their usual English courses and I was given absolutely no materials to use with them. Over time I've found flashcards and a few free mp3s that I can use in my classes. I use the same routine in all of them, reviewing what day it is, the weather, colors, body parts, and then I try to review their current vocabulary. I realize that every class is different and that different things will work for different classes, but I have one that is absolutely terrible. It's a class of 3-year-olds, and no matter what I do I can not get them to pay attention for more than 30 seconds. If I try to do active things like 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,' they end up in a body pile in no time. At the beginning of the year I was printing off coloring sheets for them related to our vocabulary (boy, girl, etc), but their regular teachers told us that coloring sheets were too much work for them and we couldn't use them anymore. I am not allowed to use Spanish with them, and I have a teacher that sits with me in the class who pretty much ignores us. I'm sort of out of ideas, and I hate yelling at them, especially when it does no good - they are stunned for a second, but then just start back at whatever they were doing prior to the shout of "Be quiet!" When I asked their regular teacher what to do, she told me to yell more, which I just don't understand. I was hoping that someone out there might have suggestions on how to handle this rowdy bunch of kids. I'm just putting this out there, and hopefully one of you can give me some suggestions.

Thank you so much,
Whitney