A successful week

This weeek I taught my classes on my own, following the recommended syllabi provided by the teachers. I was able to do introductions with all of them by showing a slide show of my family. Comments ranged from thinking Derek must be older than 21, calling Mom a "White Angel" when they saw the pic of the whole family at Dad's 80th BD, to asking if Patrick was a "sumo" wrestler when I said he was a fighter! And, the picture of Fran always elicited ohs and awes, but it wasn't about Fran, but the beautiful blue iceberg in the picture!

As I showed the pictures, for the lower levels, I went through all the family connections - aunt, cousin, niece, nephew, etc. I then had the kids answer questions about themselves: how old are you, do you have any brothers or sisters, where do you live (many from neighboring villages), what are your interests, etc. This is the topic for two grade levels, so it really meshed well with introducing myself. At the end of two different lessons, I had kids say, "Good lesson"! Didn't think kids said things like that about school! Couldn't believe it!

In some of the classes, I also showed the pics of Juneau (thanks Alan!) and led into their topic for next time - holidays/vacations. I have a lot more Juneau and Alaska material that I will use all year where ever I can.

The kids are really fun. For the most part, they are inquisitive and eager to learn. There are a few in each class who seem disinterested, but the majority are engaged. They all say Hi between classes and approach me to try to have a conversation. These are very limited for most, as only a few are really conversant.

One of the other teachers offered to switch class times with me on Tuesday's, so now I will have my two classes first thing in the morning and be done at 10:20am instead of having one class at 9:35 and the other not until 1:30. I need that time to help prep for the big days of Thursdays and Fridays with 6 and 5 classes respectively.

Each day after school this week, I helped Ildiko translate multiple web pages for her brother's business. He has a mini-cab transport company in London and serves Hungarians exclusively. Now he wants to branch out and he asked Ildiko to translate his website into English. What a chore! She was doing literal translations and it made no sense. We ended up taking it a section at a time, with her reading it in Hungarian, telling me the main ideas, and my trying to write something. Think I will be a bit more careful when I agree to do something for someone again! We spent at least four hours doing this, and there is about an hour's worth of work left. Her daughter was sick on Friday and she wasn't here, so we weren't able to finish.

On Thursday, I also helped edit two essays for students who were entering the essays into a competition on how the Bible has effected their lives. Istvan caught me between every class (10 minute breaks between each of the 6 classes I had) and we would do a paragraph at a time. Then in the evening I worked with the other student, David, the one who took me shopping my second day. He offered to bring me apples from home when he comes back on Monday in repayment. I spent about another 1/2 hour at the dorm when we were done, talking with the dorm "teacher". Not sure if she is really a teacher or not, but she lives there during the week, and assists the students with their homework. She is learning English as her daughter and her boyfriend are in Vancouver Canada and she will be visiting them, so she wants to know some English. We exchanged pronunciation tips!