lessons and such

Guess what? I just finished week 6 of my 12 week Pres-Service Training here in Uzunagash! For all of the non-mathematicians out there, that’s halfway! Crazy, eh? This week has been great, and I don’t know that I have a lot to write about, because we’ve finally fallen into somewhat of a routine. This week we’ve taught three lessons – two eighth grade, and one tenth grade. The eighth grade classes have been sailing along because this is now the 4th lesson I’ve taught the same class. They don’t understand most verbal directions, although they are improving on the ones I have given each time such as stand up, sit down, make a circle, and come to the board. On Thursday we did health and injuries and the kids got a kick out of acting out injuries and telling a doctor (wearing a paper “hat” with a red cross on it) what’s wrong (I cut my hand) and how they got injured (I was using a knife). They have been learning by memorizing grammar and translating out of a book for so long that they don’t know how a dialogue works, or how we can play games in class. We’re teaching in a style they’ve never seen before, so the first few classes they were very timid in volunteering to speak in class or to act out a dialogue in front of everyone. But today, when I asked for volunteers as I wore the doctor hat, the kids began to get excited to be in the dialogue even if they didn’t quite know what they were supposed to say. And that’s great – if they’re thinking about the role playing itself, and the English is just the prerequisite to be able to play along, then they learn for the sake of the game, and not just because a teacher told them they should know it. The tenth graders, on the other hand, are a different kind of wonderful. All girls, they were very well behaved and attentive and quick on the uptake (not that they are all these things just because they are female, although overall the girls are much more engaged than the boys). I had a difficult task of explaining the difference between Simple and Continuous Present Perfect Tense (I have lived here for a month vs. I have been living here for a month) and they got it from the start. In my younger class, I really can’t explain grammar because they don’t have the English knowledge to understand an explanation while I don’t have the Russian knowledge to put it in their language. So, the local counterpart takes over to explain grammar, but, as it was a solo lesson, I had to make do. And they did wonderfully and we talked about what we have and haven’t done, where we have and haven’t been, and it was great. I’m hopeful that with this group we can actually do some meatier activities where they employ some higher thinking. In 8th grade I’m teaching functional language – sayings and phrases that they can use and move around according to a model (What’s wrong? I hurt my (insert body part). How did you hurt your (same body part)? I was playing (insert sport)), but I’m hoping we can do some discussions, descriptions, dialogues and critical thinking in the older class. I have them for two weeks before we move on to conferences and the site visit, so we’ll see. Speaking of site visit, I’ll find out next Friday (October 5th, not the 6th) where my 2-year home will be. That’s exciting to say the least. I’ll have to post it up here and have all of you use your unlimited internet access to research it and get back to me.

On an entirely unrelated topic, it has been getting steadily colder and today we “turned on” the heat. The heating system in the house is pretty neat: in the room next to mine there is a coal stove that sends heat through a series of pipes that run through the whole house. There are radiators in each room, so tonight will be much warmer than last. I have a thermometer on my alarm clock and last night it got down to 61F in my bedroom. I imagine that means it’s at least down to 50F outside. Hooray for indoor heating, even if it means more work to keep a fire going 5-6 months out of the year.