Teachers Log Stardate 05.01.08 A

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Last night was our first night of teaching. This is Amy writing right now. I left our apartment around 1:55pm and was picked up by my director who does not speak very much English. We drove for about 10 minutes and arrived at the school. When I got there, I was so scared because no one was speaking any English, but yet were telling me that in the matter of an hour, I was going to start teaching my 7 classes a day. I had no idea where to start!! Usually you get to sit and watch someone else teach for at least a day so you know what to do, but nope. I was thrown right into the deep end. After the initial scariness of being there the other teachers began speaking English to me. Then the American teacher from Missouri, named John, came in and he helped me out a lot. He told me where each class was (as they were previously his classes) and gave me the corresponding text books. If I had any questions or needed a translator the women that I work with were happy to help me.

My first class consisted of one new student who did not know the English alphabet yet. So, we spent the 50 minutes of the class reading the alphabet and I taught her the song that goes with it. She now knows most letters except she has trouble with "u" and "v". My next class was about 8 students and we spent the time reading out loud a dialogue from their textbook. I guess they were already practicing it for a while because now I have a test for them on Tuesday. I have no idea what the grading system is or how I am even going to do it!! My next few classes were all about the same. Me trying to feel things out and them asking me lots of questions. Mostly "did that thing in your nose hurt?" and "Do you have babies?" The kids made me laugh a lot. One of my older classes was very rambunctious and I had to leave the room for a couple seconds to photo copy the pages of the text because some of them forgot their books. Well, when I left the classroom, one of the boys opened the window and dropped another boy's glasses out of it. I couldn't find them. Needless to say, the two boys did not get along the rest of the class, and John (the boy without glasses now), could not participate because he could not read.

I was really nervous going yesterday, but it seemed that as soon as I sat down and told myself that I could do it, I realized that I didn't have to be nervous. Everything went well and I guess the students really liked me because they told all the other teachers that they did. I know they also told them that they thought I was very pretty, they liked my hair, I have nice big eyes, that they are envious of me, etc. It was weird to be told how pretty I am by everyone every couple of minutes.

I had a great time teaching yesterday and I am looking forward to today. Today is games day. I am sure I will have more to tell you later on when I am done. Kyle will write about his day next.