So, since my schedule is on a bi-weekly rotation, except for Mondays and Fridays, I have found myself really having to keep close track of when it’s time to make a new lesson plan, and I’ve been writing in my planner which schools I have used which lessons at, so that I make sure not to repeat something. It doesn’t sound that hard, but trust me, it is. When you throw in school holidays, etc, it’s even more difficult, as I may have done the lesson with all but one school, and I won’t get back to it for another two weeks, if I miss a day at that school. So, if schools 1-6 have done lesson A and are now on lesson B, but I didn’t go to school 7 one week, for the next two weeks I will be teaching lesson B, but then for one day in the second of the two weeks, I will be teaching lesson A again. It’s really quite confusing.
Tomorrow I’m doing a lesson with my Jindo students (it may be my last with them, actually!) on animals and countries. My students can name both countries and animals until they turn blue, but if you ask them to point to said country on a map, they are totally lost. Same thing with placing animals in a given country. I did a variation on this lesson way back at the beginning of the year, and at one point one student pointed at Canada when I asked them to point to France (and I said “Well, not anymore…” to myself under my breath 
), and another, when asked where kangaroos lived, pointed at Russia. So, here’s my basic lesson write-up:
Animal/Country Matching
Discuss animals with students. Use pictures.
Discuss some basic countries with students. Use map, preferably on the computer/tv/overhead so they can more easily see, but it’s not completely necessary.
Name animals and ask students to name what countries the animals are found in.
Name countries and ask students to name some animals that are or might be found in that country. This lesson is easiest if the list of animals is mostly made up of distinctive animals like penguins, kangaroos, lions, giraffes, etc. Other animals like sheep, wolves, and tigers, which aren’t found everywhere but are found in a few countries, are good to have, as it allows the students to be a little more general, and causes them to think about the environments that those countries have as well, but it can also be too vague, and in my experience, the students tend to prefer questions with one right answer, rather than several.
I stole the basic idea of this lesson (animals/countries) from one of the other teachers here on the island, but have changed it a bit, since it was originally conceived for elementary students.
