So I will with a strange sort of confidence say that this will likely be the very ast post from Lokossa. Its Tuesday and by Friday afternoon I will offically have sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer, in front of the Ambassador and everything. By sunday evening (all things going as planned) I will be at post and away from internet for a few weeks. I am planning on getting a cell phone on thursday when we are in Cotonou for banking and shopping, if you want my phone number, you'll have to let e know betwween now and thursday evening because otherwise i won't email it out to you. (this is a public blog so i will not be posting my number here). Model school is offically over and now we are getting down to the nitty gritty bits of what to buy before you go to post, how to survive your first three months, since we aren't supposed to leave post until Dec. 22, yea I know, crazy! but such is life.... crazy that is. There are a few things we will have to leave post for, our VAC meeting in Oct. and our PSW in November (no I'm really not going to tell you what that all stands for, it really won't help you anyway :]) Just know that they count as work days away from post and we won't get in trouble for them. Also in good news there is another TEFL volunteer posted very near me, and we are all thrilled to have yet another post-mate to add to our collection. (yes thats right I have a collection of post mates)
Also highly amusing: I found out that Pheobe, Mae, and my teaching in 4eme really wasn't all that bad ;) when asked on their final exam to right an If clause (type 1) [or if - will] there were multiple responses of "If you come late to class, the teacher will kill you." You see threats work :)
Thats about all for now, we are all consolidating ur pictures today in an attempt to be able to get as many different ones as possible on line while we are in Cotonou, so keep your eyes peeled for a few new pics either on my pages or on the other PCTs (soon to be PCVs!) pages after thursday.
Wish us luck for Swear In!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Model School
Is it sad that I'm getting used to the french keybord? I think it might be a little... However I promised a blog entry on model school so here it is.
The first two weeks of model school I taught 4éme which is kind of like teaching 8th or 9th grade. Except there is no set age for the students they were anywhere from 11 to 19 and anything from cute and smart to big and smart ass-ish. The real problem being that some of the older students didn't really understand that a 23 year old teacher who has their license really has no interest in a 4éme student... really come on. But I guess thats very much the culture here. As for teaching 4éme itself; I learned alot and not all of it about teaching... in fact I learned more about English grammar in those 2 weeks than I ever thought I would I mean honestly future perfect progressive?? past perfect progressive??? I will have been living in Benin for 9 weeks on September 21st... I had been living in the states before that... who knew? not me thats for sure and really what is the difference between 'If you come late to class the teacher will kill you', and 'If you came late to class the teacher would kill you'...? [thats right #2 is an untrue statement while #1 is a true statement ;)]
As it is now I'm teaching 6éme... and not just because I threatened to kill the students (Mae and Pheobe did too after all... come to think of it we all got moved to 6éme) 6éme is considerably easier to teach (i.e. 'Diane is HIS sister.... or Aaron's sister.... or the sister of Aaron; I stand, you stand, he,she,it stands, we stand, you(p) stand, they stand) not hard really and the kids don't understand words like kill.... late... or well kill is really the important one for them not to understand. ;)
[If you are reading this without your morning coffee you might think that the previous wasn't funny, in which case I kindly ask that you go get some coffee and try again later.]
In any case model school hasn't been all that bad, we lesson plan and then we teach and its all good, or well mostly good, sometimes our lessons bomb big time but model school is all about mistakes and learning so its no big deal if we get one hour of blank stares silence (even though thats incredibly painful to teach) we get through and we don't make the same mistake twice.
I think thats about all for now, i have club francaise (or circle des amis) tonight which is when all of the french speakers get to sound all cool and french and all the other people get to be humiliated by their shite french (mind you its not as painful as it was 7 weeks ago, but it still isn't awesome) only made better by the presence of cookies, soda, and fried yams or gataeu and piment (yum....)
So in order to not be late for my session in how to torture a Novice high french speaker I'll sign off here.
(also, got another picture posted, maybe a third soon?)
The first two weeks of model school I taught 4éme which is kind of like teaching 8th or 9th grade. Except there is no set age for the students they were anywhere from 11 to 19 and anything from cute and smart to big and smart ass-ish. The real problem being that some of the older students didn't really understand that a 23 year old teacher who has their license really has no interest in a 4éme student... really come on. But I guess thats very much the culture here. As for teaching 4éme itself; I learned alot and not all of it about teaching... in fact I learned more about English grammar in those 2 weeks than I ever thought I would I mean honestly future perfect progressive?? past perfect progressive??? I will have been living in Benin for 9 weeks on September 21st... I had been living in the states before that... who knew? not me thats for sure and really what is the difference between 'If you come late to class the teacher will kill you', and 'If you came late to class the teacher would kill you'...? [thats right #2 is an untrue statement while #1 is a true statement ;)]
As it is now I'm teaching 6éme... and not just because I threatened to kill the students (Mae and Pheobe did too after all... come to think of it we all got moved to 6éme) 6éme is considerably easier to teach (i.e. 'Diane is HIS sister.... or Aaron's sister.... or the sister of Aaron; I stand, you stand, he,she,it stands, we stand, you(p) stand, they stand) not hard really and the kids don't understand words like kill.... late... or well kill is really the important one for them not to understand. ;)
[If you are reading this without your morning coffee you might think that the previous wasn't funny, in which case I kindly ask that you go get some coffee and try again later.]
In any case model school hasn't been all that bad, we lesson plan and then we teach and its all good, or well mostly good, sometimes our lessons bomb big time but model school is all about mistakes and learning so its no big deal if we get one hour of blank stares silence (even though thats incredibly painful to teach) we get through and we don't make the same mistake twice.
I think thats about all for now, i have club francaise (or circle des amis) tonight which is when all of the french speakers get to sound all cool and french and all the other people get to be humiliated by their shite french (mind you its not as painful as it was 7 weeks ago, but it still isn't awesome) only made better by the presence of cookies, soda, and fried yams or gataeu and piment (yum....)
So in order to not be late for my session in how to torture a Novice high french speaker I'll sign off here.
(also, got another picture posted, maybe a third soon?)
Thursday, September 6, 2007
At the New Cyber
I know I say this all the time, but I will have a post all about model school typed up and ready to go soon, right now I only have fifteen minutes so I'm going to make this quick-like.... I'm at the new cyber and it works fantastically, in fact I even got a picture loaded using this cyber so that was fantastic! I' waiting to see if a few more will load before i head back to school, anyway the one or more will be at the link to the right of the page --> that says my pictures.... GO LOOK! comment!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
