I didn’t write yesterday, by the time I got around to doing
it I didn’t feel like thinking anymore. In the wake of Monday’s shell shock,
each day has gotten better and better. I’m learning people’s names more
permanently, getting a feel for the layout of the school and surrounding area,
and starting to feel more comfortable in my role as more teacher than student.
All of the English/TTO teachers have been wonderful about sharing nuggets of
advice and information about the ins and outs of teaching Dutch children –
sometimes I feel like a bobble head I spend so much time nodding my head and
making noises that indicate agreement or understanding. So, yesterday I spent
the morning in the lower form. I’ve always said that I prefer high school
students and that middle schoolers are the worst, but was pleasantly surprised
to find that I loved working with the T1, T2, and T3 students (that would be
the equivalent to honors-ish 7th, 8th, and 9th
grade). As the T1s worked I milled about the room, my favorite was when a girl
flagged me down to come to her desk. As I crouched next to her (small ears and
a loud room makes for very difficult hearing, especially for the shyer
speakers) she looked me square in the face and said, “I can understand your accent
good, because I watch MTV”. My first thought: “good grief, she is way too young
to watch that trash”. But decided to vocalize my praise for her practicing
American-English and asking what she liked to watch instead. I bounced around
in the lower forms for the rest of the morning then spent the afternoon over at
the upper form. Toward the end of the day I met with my coordinating teacher
and we discussed plans for the coming weeks. Things are still a little up in
the air (and to be honest, I still don’t really grasp the schedule) but I’ll be
teaching a little bit next week in her T4 class. Monologues vs. soliloquies vs.
asides on Wednesday and present perfect tense on Friday. Should be interesting.
After school, it was raining quite a bit but I needed to run
to the bank, so on my way home I got off the bus in Wageningen which I believe
is pronounced [vah-ne-ah], although I’m not totally certain about that. When I
talk about it I just make sure to make a “vah” sound followed by a glottal
slide and people seem to get what I’m talking about. All I can say for sure is
that it definitely is not pronounced [wagon-in-gen]. I know that tidbit from
experience. There’s a university in Wageningen and it promised to be kind of a
cool area, but the rain kept me from anything more than wandering around lost
for a half hour until I found the bank I was looking for. Hopefully we’ll get a
day that isn’t too terribly wet so that I can explore a little bit.
As for today, another day at school. During the last block I
sat in on a T3 class (9th graders) who were reviewing for their
reading test tomorrow, but for the last few minutes I got to tell the kids a
little bit about the American education system and culture in the United
States, then they were allowed to ask me questions. True to pubescent
fifteen-year-old fashion, they were all embarrassed to ask questions in front
of each other. So I told them a little bit about the accents from the North and
South, and how if they ever visited the South they had to try fried pickles. It
was fun to see them wrinkle up their noses at that. After class ended, a kind
of good-naturedly cheeky boy asked me if there were a lot of red-necks in my
area… looks like I’ll have to dig up some (school appropriate) photographs from
Rodeo to show them.
Outside of school, things are going well. Maybe it’s just
coincidence, but I’ve noticed that the Dutch are very musical people… well,
Dutch men are very musical. Lots of humming and the occasional chorus from male
teachers and Hans at random intervals. It’s quite nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment