Teaching Week Two

10.27.10
So this week, the fourth official week, was my second week teaching. Or, well, sort of teaching.


Monday went well – I got to teach all three of my scheduled classes, which is six hours total. I was exhausted and a little frustrated by the end of it (to be expected), but I survived. My students may have even learned something… maybe.


For my 5eme class, I’m reviewing the highlights of 6eme to see what they remember, which is evidently not much. We reviewed the most basic sentence structures – affirmative and negative of “to be”, like “I am a student,” and “She is not a man” – and most of the class was completely baffled. I got a number of confused sentences, the most popular being, “I am a not.” This is fantastically existential, but not what I was going for.


The two 6eme classes are starting from scratch, so we worked on greetings (good morning, etc.) and the alphabet – I want them to be able to spell things in English. They loved reading the letters (I gave some of them personalities, like R, which was pirate-y) and spelling their names, but getting them to do anything else was like trying to get a boulder to hula hoop... ne marche pas. They don’t really understand me in any of my languages – English, French, mime – yet, so it’s going to take some serious patience to get them to do my activities.


Tuesday I don’t work, but Lou and I met with the mayor of Ifagni, who’s going to New Jersey this week. We thought he wanted cultural tips, but he actually wanted our parents’ contact info… Mom and Dad, if a strange African man shows up on your doorstep, I’m sorry. He’s bringing a special hat to wear in a picture with you, though, if you’re interested.

Wednesday (today) I’d prepared a lesson plan for my 1-3pm class, but not for the 9-11am class – we had a teacher’s meeting starting at “09h trés precieuse.” At 10:42 we finally started the meeting, and four and a half hours later, it ended. It was monsooning (the heaviest rain I think I’ve ever seen), but they fed us a big meal of pate and liver kebobs, so I guess it all balances out.


Here’s a picture of the road I take to get home… after the rain, it’s more like a series of small rivers.