Thanks to everyone that I've heard from this week - I love getting your emails! Also, speaking of email, if you don't want to check my (awesome) website every day, you can sign up for email updates - my posts delivered right to your inbox! Click on the link to the right of this post.
You guys are asking me a lot about teaching. I GUESS since that's the reason why I'm here I could address it...
I really like teaching! Every day and every hour is a new challenge, but I generally to feel proud of myself at the end of each lesson. Typically, I have between 6 and 15 students in my own classroom - I either have half the class or the teacher sends me a few students. My main job is to talk with the students - to get them to talk with me and to work on their oral comprehension.
My peach of a grandmother keeps emailing me and saying that "my students must love me!" Of course, I always adore such grandmotherly support, but I'm not so sure that all my students love me... Because I don't care if they do! We are there to speak English, and I don't stand for any bullshit. Sometimes they try to get me to understand a French word and I get a big sigh when I stare at them blankly and then pass them the dictionary.
That being said, I do try to make my classes fun. A few weeks ago, their task was to describe their favorite movies. I learned that the Harry Potter movies are about a character who must "avenge the murders of his parents" (because that's definitely an apt description of a movie series that focus on the triumph of love over evil). Whatever, they described it in grammatically correct English, so I was satisfied.
Last week we played the game "Never Have I Ever." In the US, this game is usually accompanied by alcohol. Everyone holds up both hands, and people take turns saying something that they've never done. If someone says something that you have done, you must put down a finger and tell the story. Now, most of my students are 18-20 year old boys, so you can bet that I changed the rules a bit. I came in with a list of things that I had "never" done and it was up to the students to tell their stories. A few highlights:
- "Never have I ever had something stolen from me" got confused with "never have I ever stolen something" - and things that my students have stolen include: deodorant (because he needed it), a bike (because it was there ?!?!?!?!!!, - yes apparently people actually think like this), and the head of a blowtorch (to sell it). Oh okay. (!!!!!!)
- I happened to play "never have I ever" with a group of students on the same day that I first met them. I didn't have a class list, so they introduced themselves to me and wrote their name on a piece of paper propped on their desk so I could see it when I called on them. When I got to "Never have I ever lied about my name", two of my students burst into laughter and put down a finger. "Ok, so when did you lie about your name?!" I prompted them. "Now!" They exclaimed. "Excuse me? Now?" "Yes... to you!" The whole class started laughing and they told me their real names .... I was mostly impressed with their classmates. Sometimes students have tried to give me a fake name, but usually their classmates laugh and give them away.... Gotta be careful with this class of apparent LIARS! Haha.
Ok, enough writing! Have an excellent weekend and belated Thank you to all of our veterans, especially those reading this post ;)
xoxoLove
Samantha
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