Roads to Safe Places

My German students, who are from different schools spread all over Hannover, are all reading this poem this month. Students the same ages didn't last year, and they're all using different books, most of them the same they used last year. They're in different years and are doing different things. Still.

One of my students hates poetry, she says.

She doesn't want to have anything to do with it, whenever they're faced with poems in class everything about her speaks her dislike. Her body language, her expression, her moans, how she approaches the topic, the way she deals with it. She just doesn't like poetry and frequently expresses intense dislike when confronted with poetry, she's easily confused and frustrated, and doesn't see the point of dealing with it.

At first I thought it was that specific poem, which was admittedly rather obscure and gave them a second one the next lesson. Again, the same reaction. Frustration, lack of understanding of both content or why rhythm is important at all.

And then I gave her a poem in Russian, her native language. I wish I'd had a camera to capture just how quickly she snatched that sheet ouf of my hands, and how hungrily she read those lines, and how eagerly she engaged with the poem, and the translation provided below. She immediately had a plethora of opinions on this poem, too, I've never seen her that engaged with a poem- any text - ever before.

It was clear that this student, homesick, rejecting all things German, would appreciate the inclusion of her native language in class, but I had just never pictured just how much. I hope I can manage to incorporate the student's native language in German classes in future somehow.

Yes, I'm trying to keep myself from thinking about my exam tomorrow. My two youngest students in the tutoring centre are in sixth and seventh grade respectively and they're at the tutoring centre because their written work is poor. Writing is not the most popular task for many kids, and the fact that their lesson is on Friday afternoon, after school does not help. These lively kids are usually very fidgety and find it very hard to concentrate - no wonder, given the fact that they're in the centre for ninety minutes between two and four on after a week of work!

Last week I had one act out an action with the other had to construct a sentence in the tense that he was revising, and all their sleepiness and demotivation went away as if by magic. Earlier, I had them set each other vocab tests on the board in adjacent rooms to give them an excuse to move around, write on the board, and teach each other rather than doing another test in written work.
A few weeks previous, I had them set each other dictations, which is a little too hard for the kid in sixth grade, but surprisingly doable. Spelling games like Scrabble, Boggle and Quiddler adapted for the needs of my students are also really popular and we usually use those during the last ten minutes. They've been known to insist on staying in ten minutes longer just to finish a game, and they do remember the words they used during the game, so that seems to work, but lately, I've been running out of ideas for quick things that are cost-effective with regards to the lesson time they take up.

My youngest student has not only failed their last vocab test, but he's also supposed to learn the irregular verbs - he never does his homework and learning things by heart seems to be nigh impossible for him. When we talked about their vocab learning methods, the younger dude said something along the lines of, "If I ever did learn my vocabulary lists, I'd probably copy them down and learn them by heart." Pwned by conditional II there, kid.
So ever since I heard that they had to study the irregular verbs I've been trying to come up with ways to make this more fun, and I think I might have found something:

Crocky uses this to teach her younger piano students to read sheet music, and I'm thinking of making something similar for irregular verbs. It's just a slightly shinier way of getting him to quiz himself, really, but who can resist a d12 - even if it happens to have irregular verb forms written on it?!
Also, it's a perfect excuse for me to have fun with cardboard, glue, and possibly even adhesive book covering. Other obvious options include crossword puzzles and bingo, but they also involve sitting down, and this at least allows some moving around. I realise it's not that much.

Are there any other way of getting students to improve their vocabulary? I'm quite partial to the vocabulary duel, too, which might still work with their age group, and similar things to make quizzing each other sound more appealing - especially if they involve moving around.