Teaching for 5 hours straight is more work than you might imagine! Yesterday, I had three classes, starting at 4:00pm and going until 9:00. I had 15-minute "breaks" between each 90-minute class, but most of that time was taken up by collecting nametags, erasing and preparing the board, passing out new nametags and materials, and answering questions from my eager students. I brought a banana in hopes that I would be able to have at least sometime to tide me over, but I never had a free moment to even eat a banana.
Because I have five groups of the same level, I will teach the same lesson five times each week, so by the last group, I have that lesson totally memorized. That's nice because it frees me to really pay attention to my students and assess whether they actually understand what I'm saying. I try to teach as much as possible in English, and I told my classes that their job is speak English as much as they can, but I frequently had to give directions in Russian during my first classes. It's nice that I can do that, but I have to be careful that my students don't get lazy and expect me to translate everything.
Craziness aside, I really enjoyed teaching my first lessons. I have two groups of teenagers, and the rest are adults. The teenagers groups are fun to teach because I can joke around a bit more with them, and both groups are pretty active and already speak decent English (of course it's far easier to learn a language at a young age). My adult groups are also good, and they were active in class too. The adult groups, however, seemed to struggle a bit more with grammar and pronunciation than the teenagers, and I have a few adult students who might not be ready for this level. The adults took a more serious approach to the first lessons, though, and so it will be interesting to see how the different groups react to different activities.
It's pretty cool to think that I'm the first American that most of my 63 students have ever met. Some of my adult students said that they were so happy that they could understand almost everything I said, which is an accomplishment; I know from learning Russian that there is a huge difference between listening to a foreigner and listening to a native speaker. It makes me feel good to know that my effort to keep my speech simple and clear--without making it too stilted and awkward--worked.
Being that this is the last weekend for a while when I don't have a mountain of journals and homework to grade, I went with a few of the other teachers to the American Home's annual inter-city basketball tournament (just to watch). Then, we walked around the central city park, listened to a rock concert in the park, and had some delicious sashlyk (shish kebab). Here's a picture of the basketball tournament--note Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Because I have five groups of the same level, I will teach the same lesson five times each week, so by the last group, I have that lesson totally memorized. That's nice because it frees me to really pay attention to my students and assess whether they actually understand what I'm saying. I try to teach as much as possible in English, and I told my classes that their job is speak English as much as they can, but I frequently had to give directions in Russian during my first classes. It's nice that I can do that, but I have to be careful that my students don't get lazy and expect me to translate everything.
Craziness aside, I really enjoyed teaching my first lessons. I have two groups of teenagers, and the rest are adults. The teenagers groups are fun to teach because I can joke around a bit more with them, and both groups are pretty active and already speak decent English (of course it's far easier to learn a language at a young age). My adult groups are also good, and they were active in class too. The adult groups, however, seemed to struggle a bit more with grammar and pronunciation than the teenagers, and I have a few adult students who might not be ready for this level. The adults took a more serious approach to the first lessons, though, and so it will be interesting to see how the different groups react to different activities.
It's pretty cool to think that I'm the first American that most of my 63 students have ever met. Some of my adult students said that they were so happy that they could understand almost everything I said, which is an accomplishment; I know from learning Russian that there is a huge difference between listening to a foreigner and listening to a native speaker. It makes me feel good to know that my effort to keep my speech simple and clear--without making it too stilted and awkward--worked.
Being that this is the last weekend for a while when I don't have a mountain of journals and homework to grade, I went with a few of the other teachers to the American Home's annual inter-city basketball tournament (just to watch). Then, we walked around the central city park, listened to a rock concert in the park, and had some delicious sashlyk (shish kebab). Here's a picture of the basketball tournament--note Misha, the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
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