Busy, Busy, Busy!

Whew. I finally have a chance to breathe! This week was beyond busy for me. I had promised to write after the first day of classes on Monday, but then I just got swamped trying to keep track of things this week. Now here it is, almost a full week after my last note (shame on me!) and I’m finally getting a chance to post again. As they say, better late than never. Right?

When Emily and I had students take the placement tests at registration, we placed them in three different groups: beginners, high beginners, and intermediate/advanced students. All total we had just under 40 students sign up. Most of them came and registered during the actual registration time that we had set aside and advertised. But because planning in advance and strictly following schedules is not a cultural norm here, there have been people who’ve tried to register afterwards. Parents bring their children and just ask, “When can they start?” We have to explain that classes are closed or that their child’s level is already full. And there are some boys that live in the same building as church that just show up when we’re there and sit down like they’re ready for class. We’ve told them they needed to register because we’ve already started but I think they are partly just trying to cause a little bit of trouble. They always think it’s funny to yell in the hallway outside the church or knock on the door and run away during classes. lol Boys will be boys, I guess.

We had also advertised that parents needed to come to Orientation. That did not really happen. It caused a slight problem with some students because of the private/public school schedules. So after some students didn’t show up this week and people got class times mixed up and people trying to register late, we decided we’d have meetings today to help clarify class time. We had each level meet separately. Each meeting was very brief and went much better. More parents showed up this time too. That was good because then they, too, can become more comfortable with us and with just being in and around the church.

Like I said, since it is not the norm here to plan in advance or follow a process with deadlines, it has been frustrating for us to keep turning people away. Don’t get the wrong idea—we aren’t just saying no to people. lol We just have to keep explaining that classes have already started and that they are closed for this session. We have told them to come and register in January when the second session starts. And of course we’ve invited them to our activity nights. Those are good practice for English and getting to know each other.

Speaking of the activity nights that I was so excited about, I’m a little disappointed to announce that they have had to be combined into only one night a week. I had high hopes for these nights and was really enjoying the planning, but it is for a good reason that we have to change the schedule. We will just call it Friendship Night and it will now be on Friday night. We’ll alternate with the previously planned culture night and friendship night activities. So at least activity time doesn’t get cut out of the schedule completely, it just gets compacted into one time slot.

The reason for this is because we had to create an extra class of beginners. Once we had our groups divided into time slots that worked, we had to give them names of some sort so we could keep them straight since there was more than one group of the same level. Instead of A and B groups, we gave them color names; red and orange for beginners, yellow and green for high beginners, and blue for the intermediate/advanced group.

Emily teaches the red group on Monday and Wednesday from 10-11 and the orange group on Tuesday and Thursday from 2-3:30. I have the yellow group on Monday and Wednesday from 4-5:30, the green group at the same time on Tuesday and Thursday, and the blue group on Monday and Wednesday from 6-7:30. These are the times that worked with school schedules since all of our students are still in school, except one mom who is in the beginner class with her daughter. Her other daughters are in my yellow group and one of them is quite good if I speak slowly. Anyway, we had to create a purple group of beginners with Emily on Tuesday and Wednesday nights from 6-7:30 because there were a few people in my green group that were beginners. We didn’t want to them to struggle and then stop coming because that would be discouraging to them. Instead, we sacrificed our activity nights because they could all come at that time for a class of their own. It works well because that whole group is all around our age and they are done with work or classes by that time.

Now that we have the schedule solidified, I should have more time next week. I need to get used to planning and reviewing lessons. The books we have are sufficient, though we both agree they are not the best for structured evaluation since they don’t have chapters or units or test or anything. They are based, supposedly, on the most common English words and conversations. Emily said that was the main reason they picked them last year. She and I both think that when we get the opportunity, we’ll look into different books for next year. We’ll use the ones we have to continue this year. We split them into three 12 week sessions. That way we can break at Christmas and once in the spring and make it through most of the book. Plus, the kids still seem to learn from it, even if it’s not broken into vocabulary or grammatical concepts like typical language books.

Now you understand why our week was so hectic. We were trying to communicate with people about times, schedules, etc. But since we didn’t always have the right attendance at classes, we couldn’t start the books right away so we had to plan our own reviews and activities for the first few classes. My activities and review exercises are what lead me to figure out that 4 of my students from the green group needed to have their own group at a lower level. So it proved helpful after all. This week we will get into the book. And the good thing about these books is that the teacher’s manual has the entire lesson plan already made for you. All I need to do is tweak it to fit my class. That means I can add my own fun. =)

Last week my fun activity for my first classes was that I taught them the game Hangman. They need to learn the names for the English letters. The Albanian alphabet doesn’t name their letters; they just refer to them by their sounds. So guessing letters helped with that, plus filling in the blanks is good for recognizing words and spelling. I kept the message simple, “See you on [next class day]!” They had fun with it. The next class I reviewed days of the week, months of the year, the alphabet, and practice with reading the word names for numbers and writing it in numerals. I did random numbers ranging from two to five hundred forty to six-thousand four hundred thirteen to three million. They did well. During that lesson I found out that if you sing to a class, you silence them and gain their attention quite easily. lol With the yellow and green groups, we sang the alphabet. When I started, they got quiet and then joined in right away. With the blue group, I sang them the song I learned when I was learning the months of the year. They clapped when I got done. Hahaha!!! =) Too funny!

Besides that, our week was rather eventful as far as our water and power services were concerned. Tuesday morning we woke up and had no water so we weren’t able to shower before we went to our classes. We both felt kind of gross but we didn’t really have a choice so we made the best of it. The funny part was that I got compliments on my hair. Can you believe it? Haha! And throughout the week, our power has gone on and off. It’s been just flickers sometimes, other times it has been off for just a few minutes, but Sunday it was out for 45 minutes. And at church it’s been worse. Emily had to teach a class in the dark and then cut it short because the lanterns were dimming out.

It’s also been quite rainy in the afternoons here this week. Emily and I have been rocking our rain boots. I even made up as song—“Keep on rockin’ my rain boots/Keep on rockin’ my rain boots/Keep on rockin’ an’ rockin’ an’ rocking’/Baby baby baby keep rockin’ my rain boots!” Ok so I stole it and changed it, but it’s still fun to sing when we wear them. =) We get plenty of funny stares because they aren’t popular here like they are in the states, but we both agree they are the smartest things we brought with us. Our feet stay dry, our pants stay dry, and they won’t wear out easily since they’re rubber.

On Wednesday I had to ride my bike all the way home in the rain. It’s a mile or maybe a little more to ride from our place to church. I was not the happiest when I got home. lol Our internet has also been going in and out this week and with the power being crazy at church, I wasn’t able to use it there really either. I did manage to get to the Stephen Center twice for the free wi-fi but I was pretty much only able to catch up on email and facebook while I was there. Better than nothing!

Tonight after our meetings we ate at Olsa, Neda, and Ledio’s house since their mom had invited us. We had halve (which I don’t know how to describe but it was good), homemade pizza, and Emily and I had brought baklava for dessert. I am so stuffed I feel like I’m about to burst. Oh, man! It was all so tasty though!

Tomorrow is church and then Olsa will probably come over for some practice typing and so I can help her look into WLC some more. Then we’ll go back to church and work for a bit putting up “bulletin boards” and organizing our supplies. We also told Olsa and Neda they could study while we work. They ask us for help with their English homework sometimes. =)

Sunday we’ll have English church, and if it’s nice, pastor said we’ll go to Elbasan. It’s really pretty there from what everyone says because it’s in the mountains. The plan is to drive there and leave between 1 and 2. When we get there we’ll have a late lunch and look around. That way on the drive home we’ll catch the sunset. Once we get back, we’ll probably have game night as usual. Yay! I like those. And last week I finally won a game! I hadn’t even won a game of anything yet. We played Settlers of Catan and I won. Not only was it my first win at game night, but it was my first non-online win in Settlers. I play against people online sometimes and have won, but it’s different live. I was excited.

In other funny news, I almost got in an accident on my bike, but not with a vehicle or another bike. It was with a person. He didn’t run in front of me or anything though. He was walking on the edge of the curb and lost his balance. As his arms flailed he almost smacked me in the face. Then he almost fell on me but he regained his balance just in time. Haha! It was funny. But my big bike riding accomplishment is that I can now ride through one of the roundabouts with the traffic. Yay for me! It still gets frustrating with all the honking though. Emily told me I would discover bike rage instead of road rage. lol I think I have. With the whole “everyone has the right of way” idea it’s easy to get frustrated and flustered.

Another funny story is that this week I found out that my first class is all girls between the ages of 9 and 13. They are all very studious and will learn very quickly. I had them introduce themselves and tell us about themselves after I did. Just about every one of them told me I was their favorite teacher, or that Emily and I were their favorite teachers. That just made me want to laugh because they hadn’t even had a lesson yet. It was cute though and was very encouraging to me to know that they liked me. I had one girl call me “dear teacher” plus two girls and a parent tell me I was “very sweet.” I don’t know why. Maybe because I just try to smile a lot since I have no idea whatsoever what they are saying when they speak Albanian to me. I figure smiling is a universal language.

Even though the week was super busy and slightly stressful at times it was good. It can be hard trying to talk with parents who only know Albanian when we only know English. Even though we can find people to translate, it’s hard when you don’t know what they’re saying, if they’re saying exactly what you want them to, if they are giving the correct information or if they are answering questions instead of asking us first, etc. Not that we don’t trust the people who translate for us—we do! Completely! It’s just sometimes frustrating to not always feel like we are running the show for our own English program and for our own classes. But things could be much much worse and I always just remind myself that people are just as confused with English as I am with Albanian. That helps give me lots of patience. And knowing that the kids are excited and that they like us is already rewarding. I can’t wait to find out how much more rewarding it will be when I can see their improvement in English and when they realize it for themselves. =)

Before I head to bed—it is after 1:30am here—I would like to thank everyone who takes the time to send me emails, leave comments on here, or send facebook messages. Having a little message in my inbox puts a smile on my face and it warms my heart to hear little stories from home. Reading your stories and your news makes me still feel connected to my life in the states. That is so important to me since I can’t see your faces or hear your voices. It means so much that people are thinking of me! Wow! I am so blessed! Take care and know that I keep you in my prayers as well. =)

But now I must say good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite! But if they do, grab a shoe, and beat them ‘til they’re black and blue! ;)