Remember when I said I was the Ms. Trunchbull of English teachers in Poland? I think I'm actually more like Cameron Diaz's character in Bad Teacher. Granted, I've never seen this movie, but earlier this week I was throwing back a few brewskies with my host siblings when a group of teens from my class showed up. I attempted to play it off casually, but there's only so much one can do when caught red-handed with one of Poland's finest apple ales.
So since my blog is starting to sound like one giant drunken Euro-trip, I should probably touch on the actual teaching part of LE. After adjusting the first week, I made a few edits to my teaching schedule. I now have four classes every day with one conversation "class" (in quotes because it's really just me and this one woman Annetta discussing differences in American and Polish culture- more on her later).
My first class is the youngest, ages 6-9, and absolutely adorable. The most successful lessons/games so far have been Hatchi Patchi (although there's a group of three girls who have figured out a way to always be "it"- adorable, brilliant, but I'm pretty sure the other students are starting to catch on and may start a Hatchi Patchi rebellion), Peel Banana (which I stole from my Camp Kesem experience and made into a game- also at first the kids thought I was saying "peevo banana" which means "beer banana" in Polish, so case and point for the Bad Teacher reference...), Simon Says, and Duck Duck Goose. They also drew pictures of their family on the day we learned about family vocabulary, an exercise I loved in hopes of them bringing the drawings home to their families, in which they would respond, "What an amazingly thoughtful American teacher my son/daughter has!" **Brush that dirt off my shoulder....*
My second class includes students ages 11-13, and vary from being energetic to quiet as hell. Today particularly rocked with them though, we played Jeopardy and made paper planes to throw at things around the classroom in order to review classroom objects.
My third class includes the teenagers and "young adults" as society dubs them. I was originally really nervous of this class (they're really cool, if you had to teach them, you'd be nervous too), but they've become my favorite class I think! Every day I get more people coming in to play the games and practice their English, it's awesome. My favorite day with them was the day we went over music genres and I had them split into groups and write their own songs. The song titles included, "Cheese" by Cheese, "Washing", "Sunny Day" and "Vodka" by Hangover Duck (that last one was inspired by a hungover Daffy Duck drawing that one student drew- great song btw, I'll try and see if iTunes will add it to their "Top 100 Best Polish Drinking Didlies").
So I'm running out of computer power since I accidentally left my charger at the school (whoops...typical Julie move), so until next time!
ALSO SO STOKED FOR MIDPOINT BREAK THIS WEEKEND HOLLAAAAAA.
JBro
****SIDE STORY: Last week, I witnessed chicken rape.
This is the second time in my life I've witnessed bird sexual harassment. The first time was in Miami on campus where these terrifying looking ducks run wild at all hours of the day (seriously, they look like they've been genetically engineered for Mordor's army). I was walking back from class and two ducks were waddling on the sidewalk in front of me. Suddenly, the boy duck bit the neck of the girl duck and began to "deflower her innocence" while the girl duck sat there squawking. It was so horrific that at one point, I even turned around to the people walking behind me and asked, "Should we do something?" Needless to say, I've been scarred by the experience ever since.
As for the chicken, I happened to witness this horrific display of bird sexuality over supper. When it's nice outside, my host family always eats their meals out on the porch, which happens to be across from the barn. As I'm reaching for more of my host mom's fabulous cooking (because you don't say "no" to her cooking, trust me, it's worth the extra love handles), I see in the distance a rooster jump on a nearby hen and watched in horror as the baby-making process began. No one else at the table seemed remotely phased by this, so I sat there acting as cavalier as possible. As I continued eating, I looked down at my meal with a sudden realization that the hard boiled eggs within my potato/vegetable dinner had probably come from this same rooster, perhaps even this exact hen.
Se la vie, 'cause it's waaaaaaay too good.
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