In contrast to the previous few posts this will be mostly text, so if that's not your thing wait for the next one that will have some new photos. Sunday night here and the week is about to begin again, although with classes on Saturdays it kinda feels like the week never ended. It has begun to cool off here a bit, a result of the three or four days of rain in row we have been getting. All those people who told me to take an umbrella were not kidding (and I'm glad I listened!). That being said, the last couple of weeks of september should actually warm up and be quite nice and then in October the real weather will begin. So I will be enjoying this nice autumn weather for a couple more weeks until I am forced to find myself some good winter attire.
I'm pretty much going to go through and just recap interesting events from my week. I'll start off with Tuesday, my first class! I arrived about 20 minutes early (11:00 am for and 11:20 class) and the teacher arrived about 5 minutes after that and handed me a textbook, pointed to a chapter, and said, "here is what you are teaching today." So I had a good 15 minutes of preparation for class. That being said I think it went pretty well. It was a second year class so their english was still in the learning grammar stages but the students were great and patient and it was nice to have the teacher there to help explain certain things in Russian that I could really only explain with more complex English than the examples. This class, like all classes, is 90 minutes long and meets once a week. The Russian students' schedule is absolutely nonsensical for education purposes. They have around 4-5 classes a day that are all 90 minutes and it seems that most of them just meet once a week. The classrooms are constantly changing and sometimes even their instructors may change. Basically, the first couple of weeks are pretty chaotic for students and teachers as the schedules are worked out and rooms assignments finalized for all the time slots. Keeping this in mind, everyone has been exceptionally nice and helpful to me as I try to navigate this foreign system and attempt to do my job.
Skip ahead to Thursday - honestly, Wednesday was pretty uneventful. I met with two professors from the International Department to drive to School No. 8 where I will be volunteering to work with kids, teens, and teachers on....you guessed it: English! Getting there was an adventure in-and-of itself. Neither of the professors knew the area well so we did a lot of exploring and they did a lot of apologizing. I tried to assure them that I have no problem just driving around a new city and this was actually interesting for me, but I don't think they believed me. We got there around on time, which in Russia is perfectly on time, and were greeted by the Head of the school herself. She is a very happy woman who does not speak English, and at first I was excited because I got to practice my Russian. But as is always the case when I am with people from the Int'l Dept. they began to speak english and tell me what she was saying. I wanted to say, shhhhh I am trying to listen and practice! but I didn't want to seem rude so I let them play mediator for the tour of the school. In the U.S. we have elementary school, middle school, high school, and college/university. In Russia there is just school, university, and institute. School's have young kids all the way through to teens. After our short tour of the school we went to one of the classrooms where every English teacher in the school (about 8 if i remember correctly) was waiting and there was a long table with a delicious spread of snack foods and pastries and tea! I have never received a greeting like this, and for those of you who know me, which I assume is everyone reading this, I tend to be more of a modest guy. So I was very embarrassed at the "big deal" that I was to them. But once I got over this, really didn't take long, We had a social meeting to talk about the school and what they would like me to do there and what would I like to do there. In the end we settled that every Thursday I will come to the school for about 3 hours. Their classes are 45 minutes with short breaks between, so I will work for three "periods," one with younger kids, one with teens, and one with teachers. I'm actually really excited about this work because I get to just converse and talk about America, myself and whatever subjects they want to focus on. Will be less strict grammar type stuff than what I am currently working on at the University. So I will update you all on how things go with the school this week, should be fun!
Friday I did some shopping, went to the market, and it rained a LOT so I did less outside and got some work done inside. Saturday is shaping up to be my busiest day. Thought I was supposed to teach 3 classes (two business english, one TOEFL class), but when I got there the schedule had changed a bit and there was some confusion. I did teach the TOEFL class, but then I did a conversation class after that and not a third class. So a bit of a break in a way. The TOEFL class, of which I have two, is turning out to be a good challenge. It is one thing to fluently speak a language and know that a sentence is wrong and what it should say, but it is a totally other thing to explain this to someone who is learning the language. I spoke with the professor who is in charge of the class and we decided that it will be best if I can help them with speaking and writing. Since they don't have access to a native speaker aside from me this is one skill I can offer better than grammar instruction that I think they know better than I do right now. So the first round of TOEFL classes was ok, but I am looking forward to the next round of classes as I will have them do some speaking activities that I think we all will be more suited for. The conversation class, however, was great. They are fourth year students, so their English was better and I think they understood me more than the other students. I talked to them for the first part of class about myself and my family, then let them ask me questions about America or anything they wanted to know. Then I had them go around and introduce themselves as I had, talk about where you are from and your family. I felt this was a pretty good way to open them up to talking in front of me, to see what I was dealing with as far as language ability, and a good way for me to try and remember who they are!
This was my first teaching week! I think it went alright, definitely room for improvement. Once a schedule is finalized I will be much happier because I will actually know what my classes will be each week and I will be able to prepare in the way I want to. But until then I'm going to remember to take some deep breaths and realize that all the teachers are dealing with this too, not just me. Look for a post Thursday or Friday, if the sun decides to show up again before that there are still a few photos I would like to get so there might be a post before that. Hope your winters don't come too fast (or for those of you in the southern hemisphere, i hope your summers arrive soon). Much love, Geoff
I'm pretty much going to go through and just recap interesting events from my week. I'll start off with Tuesday, my first class! I arrived about 20 minutes early (11:00 am for and 11:20 class) and the teacher arrived about 5 minutes after that and handed me a textbook, pointed to a chapter, and said, "here is what you are teaching today." So I had a good 15 minutes of preparation for class. That being said I think it went pretty well. It was a second year class so their english was still in the learning grammar stages but the students were great and patient and it was nice to have the teacher there to help explain certain things in Russian that I could really only explain with more complex English than the examples. This class, like all classes, is 90 minutes long and meets once a week. The Russian students' schedule is absolutely nonsensical for education purposes. They have around 4-5 classes a day that are all 90 minutes and it seems that most of them just meet once a week. The classrooms are constantly changing and sometimes even their instructors may change. Basically, the first couple of weeks are pretty chaotic for students and teachers as the schedules are worked out and rooms assignments finalized for all the time slots. Keeping this in mind, everyone has been exceptionally nice and helpful to me as I try to navigate this foreign system and attempt to do my job.
Skip ahead to Thursday - honestly, Wednesday was pretty uneventful. I met with two professors from the International Department to drive to School No. 8 where I will be volunteering to work with kids, teens, and teachers on....you guessed it: English! Getting there was an adventure in-and-of itself. Neither of the professors knew the area well so we did a lot of exploring and they did a lot of apologizing. I tried to assure them that I have no problem just driving around a new city and this was actually interesting for me, but I don't think they believed me. We got there around on time, which in Russia is perfectly on time, and were greeted by the Head of the school herself. She is a very happy woman who does not speak English, and at first I was excited because I got to practice my Russian. But as is always the case when I am with people from the Int'l Dept. they began to speak english and tell me what she was saying. I wanted to say, shhhhh I am trying to listen and practice! but I didn't want to seem rude so I let them play mediator for the tour of the school. In the U.S. we have elementary school, middle school, high school, and college/university. In Russia there is just school, university, and institute. School's have young kids all the way through to teens. After our short tour of the school we went to one of the classrooms where every English teacher in the school (about 8 if i remember correctly) was waiting and there was a long table with a delicious spread of snack foods and pastries and tea! I have never received a greeting like this, and for those of you who know me, which I assume is everyone reading this, I tend to be more of a modest guy. So I was very embarrassed at the "big deal" that I was to them. But once I got over this, really didn't take long, We had a social meeting to talk about the school and what they would like me to do there and what would I like to do there. In the end we settled that every Thursday I will come to the school for about 3 hours. Their classes are 45 minutes with short breaks between, so I will work for three "periods," one with younger kids, one with teens, and one with teachers. I'm actually really excited about this work because I get to just converse and talk about America, myself and whatever subjects they want to focus on. Will be less strict grammar type stuff than what I am currently working on at the University. So I will update you all on how things go with the school this week, should be fun!
Friday I did some shopping, went to the market, and it rained a LOT so I did less outside and got some work done inside. Saturday is shaping up to be my busiest day. Thought I was supposed to teach 3 classes (two business english, one TOEFL class), but when I got there the schedule had changed a bit and there was some confusion. I did teach the TOEFL class, but then I did a conversation class after that and not a third class. So a bit of a break in a way. The TOEFL class, of which I have two, is turning out to be a good challenge. It is one thing to fluently speak a language and know that a sentence is wrong and what it should say, but it is a totally other thing to explain this to someone who is learning the language. I spoke with the professor who is in charge of the class and we decided that it will be best if I can help them with speaking and writing. Since they don't have access to a native speaker aside from me this is one skill I can offer better than grammar instruction that I think they know better than I do right now. So the first round of TOEFL classes was ok, but I am looking forward to the next round of classes as I will have them do some speaking activities that I think we all will be more suited for. The conversation class, however, was great. They are fourth year students, so their English was better and I think they understood me more than the other students. I talked to them for the first part of class about myself and my family, then let them ask me questions about America or anything they wanted to know. Then I had them go around and introduce themselves as I had, talk about where you are from and your family. I felt this was a pretty good way to open them up to talking in front of me, to see what I was dealing with as far as language ability, and a good way for me to try and remember who they are!
This was my first teaching week! I think it went alright, definitely room for improvement. Once a schedule is finalized I will be much happier because I will actually know what my classes will be each week and I will be able to prepare in the way I want to. But until then I'm going to remember to take some deep breaths and realize that all the teachers are dealing with this too, not just me. Look for a post Thursday or Friday, if the sun decides to show up again before that there are still a few photos I would like to get so there might be a post before that. Hope your winters don't come too fast (or for those of you in the southern hemisphere, i hope your summers arrive soon). Much love, Geoff
Geoff,
ReplyDeleteIt surprises me that you would want an umbrella. Remembering all the times you would go without one for a tour, or an errand that would take you out in the rain. I'm so happy you are having a wonderful experience. Love reading your blog!
Take care and talk to you soon!
Love,
Shannon
Wow--sounds like you are really busy but that things are beginning to take shape. It should be really interesting to be teaching at such different levels and I think you'll have fun in the school. This should all get easier with each class, and we certainly look forward to hearing more!! Talk to you soon,
ReplyDeletemom