First Workshop
Hey all! This week went by so fast; I forgot to get my blog up yesterday because I didn't realize it was already Sunday.
I had my last cultural time with the students last Monday. We played a story-writing game and Alexa and I taught them a few new vocab words. It was fun, but I was excited to move on to teaching with the new professors. We've been making up our own curriculum for every cultural time, so it's been a little exhausting. We don't know the students' backgrounds and what vocab they know or what grammar concepts, so it's a little tricky figuring out what activities to do with all of the students. I'm looking forward to more structure and just following the professors' lesson plans.
Tuesday I spent talking with most of my family members and then just hanging around the house.
I had my conversation club on Wednesday where I did the story-writing activity again. I think I only had one repeat student from the first class, but he was helpful in explaining the activity to everyone.
I think Thursday was my favorite day this week. All of the professors are at the school now, so we had a meeting with them to discuss how to move forward with Alexa and I in their classrooms. I will work with two professors for the first half of the year and then I will work with two different ones during the second half. For now, I am working with the second year teacher during his Speaking Class on Thursdays at 9 pm. His name is Lauro and he just got to Apucarana last week. He is very nice and energetic and he asked if we could all explore the city sometime together, which sounds great to me. There's still so many new restaurants and other places to explore. The other professor I will work with is Fernando. I will be in his 4th year Literature class. He seemed very quiet at the meeting, so I was nervous to be in his class because I wasn't sure if he wanted me there. But I'll talk about that later.
After the meeting, Alexa and I had our first Workshop. The workshops are only for the English students. We made different stations for the students to go around and learn more about a different part of the US. I also made them state IDs where they would write new information from the stations and we also wanted to show them our state IDs and explain how they are used. However, only six students came. I was pretty disappointed because we had put hours of work into the workshop and only six people came to appreciate it. But it was okay because the students who came really enjoyed the activities and got to ask a bunch of questions and basically have a private lesson on the US.
I hadn't been planning on having class on Thursday night, but when I found out I would be joining Lauro on Thursdays, he invited me to come as it was the first class and I was excited to go and see how he teaches and just get involved right away. These are the same students we had cultural time with, so I know most of them already. Class was fun as Lauro had the students introduce themselves and then he had them play a speaking game to see what their level of English is like. I even got to participate as someone didn't have a partner, so I stepped in. I think this will be a very fun class and a fun professor to work with.
I was nervous on Friday because Fernando never said if he wanted me to come to class that week or the following week. I just showed up, ate dinner, and figured that I could at least observe even if he didn't plan on me coming to class. I ran into him as he was arriving and it seemed like he had expected me to come. The class was also fun and I really like Fernando. He is a bit quieter than Lauro outside of class, but in class, he loved to talk and wanted me to share my opinion and ideas. He put me on the spot a few times, but it was okay. We talked about the Bush versus Al Gore election, which I didn't know a lot about as I was 6 when it happened and we didn't talk about it in history class ever. We then talked about the book 1984, which I think we will read later on in the semester. At the end, he had everyone except me draw a book out of a bag. These were stories like The Jungle Book, the Scarlet Letter, Othello, Canterbury Tales, Tom Sawyer, and one full of short stories. The students need to read their book and do a presentation on it next week. I'm excited for the presentations as I've read most of the books.
Saturday and Sunday were basically hang out days at the house. We were supposed to have a barbecue with our landlord, except he moved it to next weekend I think. Saturday was a bit interesting as I cleaned my room and found it was dirtier than I thought. I moved my bed away from the wall and found a pile of dust bunnies, dirt, paper, an ant, and something that was stuck to the floor. I swept and mopped and then went to wash my bed. I noticed that underneath it looked like mold, so I sent a picture to my landlord and asked if he could get me a new mattress. He told me there was another mattress I could use in another girl's room, but they weren't home so I waited for him to come over. My landlord came to move the mattress and it was even moldier underneath than my original mattress. He threw it outside and ran somewhere to get another one. I thought it was new when he brought it in because it was in plastic, but when we got it out, I noticed the covering on the mattress was also kind of dirty. I threw it in the wash with my other sheets. He also brought vinegar for us to use to wipe down our beds once a week to keep the mold from growing. I don't know if that will work, but at least I think I know why I've been sick since getting to Brazil. I sneezed and coughed the rest of the day on Saturday because of all of the dust I kicked up, but at least I know my room is cleaner now.
Today I woke up early to run some errands. I really needed groceries, but when I went there, they were out of a lot of things. The entire egg shelf was empty and they only had sausages instead of chicken like I wanted. I'm assuming that since everything is closed on Sunday besides this grocery store, everyone came and bought a bunch of stuff and the store probably doesn't restock until tomorrow. Guess I'll just have to go back.
Thanks for reading!