Day one of week two of teaching. Wow, I am still amazed that we have already been in Europe for 2 whole weeks and by the same token, I feel like it has been longer than a month with all the fun and adventures we have had and all the people we have met and/or caught up with as a team.
We began our second week of teaching with some new students! Yay for new students! While they were being evaluated so that they could be placed in the right class level, we sang our three opening songs. We sang "The Penguin Song", "Rejoice in the Lord Always" and "I've got Peace like a River" with great participation from all the students. They are really starting to learn the words and actions and you can tell they like it from their smiles and enthusiasm. Next we opened the activity portion of the morning with Simon Says. A classical way to learn the parts of the body, actions and directions regardless of whether you are learning English or not. The next three pictures are from the final crew that was too tough to get out so they were declared our winners!
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| Playing Simon Says with new and returning students. Simon says "Point to the sky" |
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| Simon says "Point at Erica" |
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| Simon says "Say Cheese" |
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| Listening for instructions on where to go for class |
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| Some of the intermediate students hanging out before class |
With the loss of some students last week and the gain of new students this week, we made a few teaching team changes so that we could provide the best experience and learning environment for all our students. This change placed me in one of the intermediate sections with Sarah Martin because our class is mostly teenagers and shifted Joyce into the advanced beginners because she could relate well with those students. This change required many of us to be very flexible as well as studious as we switched curriculum levels and had to create a new teaching relationship with our partners.
Randy and Joyce and Sarah and I all worked a few extra hours on Sunday to be sure we were prepared to teach our new areas or with our new partners. I am happy to say that today was a success for all levels and classes. Everyone's willingness to sacrifice for the sake of our students made the change over that much easier.
Now if you are wondering why the title of this blog post is "In the Land of Giant Snails and Leaves..." Here is your answer. Our afternoon adventure was a hike from the village of Blatnica through the forest to the castle ruins of Blatnicky. Along the way we encountered GIANT leaves and GIANT snails.
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| Giant Leaf on the way to the Blatnicky Castle ruins |
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| Giant Snail on the way to the Blatnicky Castle ruins. |
We also
were shown a plant that has burs that work better than any man made
velcro. They work so good that you can chuck them at your friend's shirt
and they will stick. They also stick to hair and jeans and fingers and
collars. The discovery of what plant produced these wonderful little
burs created a small commotion to find more so that we could essentially
have a bur fight as we hiked.
I
can honestly say that I could have been entertained for hours just
chucking burs at one another. It reminded me of the velcro mitt and ball
game of catch I would try to play when I was growing up. Only the burs
actually stuck, while the ball always seemed to bounce off the velcro
mitt. I wish I had photo of the hits I took while walking in the front
of the pack. My entire back was covered.
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