| 20 , July 2001: Model School |
| Model school started today. WOW. I'm not sure what else to say but that. I teach 3 different classes a day, each of them are a different level. Each class has about 25-28 students in it. I teach 7th, 8th and 10th grade. My 8th class is advanced, but there are a few students in my 7th class that are practically fluent! I also have some students that have never even heard English spoken before. They don't know the alphabet, numbers or anything. I have no idea how to teach a class with so many different levels mixed together. But apparently this is something to get used to because I'm told that I will encounter the same thing when I get to my site. Can I say WOW again??? I'm not a teacher!! I don't have the first clue what I'm supposed to do. I guess this is why we hae TEFL technical sessions, but I don't think I've actually learned anything useful during these sessions. Is that bad?? Is it possible to wing it? I guess we'll see next week. Today I mainly talked about class rules, and what the students want to study these next two weeks. It's their summer break and I want to do something that they will find interesting and fun. There are over 400 students that signed up for classes. There were even more that had to be turned away because we don't have enough teachers. Can you imagine this happening in America? 400 students grades 2-11 giving up 2 weeks of their summer vacation to study a foreign language for 4 to 5 hours a day? I can't. The students are so incredibly motivated that I'm constantly amazed. The hardest part is trying to keep them from speakng in bulgarian to each other. I'm not at the point where I completely undersatnd it, although I surprised a few of my students today when they were talking, and I answered back in bulgarian. They had no idea I was able to understand what they were talking about!! It felt pretty nice to do that. I always have a million things to say in this journal before I get here, and I always forget them as soon as I sit down at the computer! This weekend I'm going to Bachovo Monastry on a Peace Corps planned trip. My two host sisters are coming with me and I'm looking forward to it. It's located in the Rhodope Mountains and I passed it a few weeks back on my way to Smolyan. It looks beautiful--I can't wait. Other than that I plan on resting this weekend. TEFL's are pretty much the only people not going on a trip or coming back from a trip. The Ecologs (environmental volunteers--or should I say trainees!) have spent the past three days in various cities to get some practical experience, and should return tonight. And on Monday, the CED's (Community and Economic Develoment volunteers/trainees) will leave for Velingrad or Pazerdjik where they two will meet with the local municipalities to get a feel for their job. They will be gone the entire week, and the CED LCF's (language and comunity skills facilitators) are even nice enough to travel with them so they can enjoy language class while they are there!! Well, it's time for me to go home and take a quick nap. I'm completely drained today. Must be from all those crazy kids!! I love you and miss you all!! Love, sarah |