numbers

I like my job, but it's not always easy. When kids are too wound up, it's hard to get control of them. Doubly so when you don't speak their language. When kids are too tired to give a damn about studying, it's hard to motivate them to do so. Doubly so when you don't speak their language.

There are also occasional problems with just the way the English language is presented to them.

I was teaching a very low level class today. Their vocabulary for this particular unit was simply the numbers 1 through 10. This should be easy, especially because every kid over here already knows English numbers. However, the way that this information was presented to them was so ridiculously complicated and confusing that if anything these kids had education taken from them.

Here is how it is presented: There's a cartoon picture of children doing different things while holding a sign with a numeral digit on it, and each kid is labeled with a letter. This is already too confusing, but it gets worse. Next to the picture are the numbers 1 through ten, like this:
1.
2.
3.
and so on...

Next to each number are the English number names, HOWEVER, the number is not necessarily the same as the number name. So it looks like this:
1. three
2. six
3. nine
and so on...

The kids are tasked with having to match the number of each English number name with the child holding it's numeral equivalent in the picture. They then have to write the number of each question which corresponds to the different written out English name of the number each character in the picture is holding in an empty circle next to the character. I swear I'm trying to explain this as best I can.

Here's how it went down in class:
Me: Okay, who can do number 1?
Students: 1 is "F"!
Me: Well, yes, the boy next to "F" is holding number 1, but number 1 is 3. So where is 3?
Students: 3 is "B"!
Me: No, no, that's the answer to question 3. We're still on question 1, which is: where is 3? Look, number 1 is 3. What boy is holding 3? "D", right? So, in the circle next to the boy holding 3, write "1".
Students: *staring blankly*
Me: *goes to each child, fills in their book for them*

I'm sitting here now trying to think of a more bewildering way to teach children the English names for numbers, and apart from flat out lying to them, I can't think of anything. It angers me that I help the fools who put this shit together make money.