Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Miss Understanding

We started the teaching practicum part of orientation last week. Students in Bartica signed up to sit in class for a week to be our guinea pigs. We only expected 20 students total but ended up with 100. Apparently they were really excited to have teachers who don't know what they're doing practice on them like a science experiment.

On the first day of class, we made the students go around and say their names (which I couldn't understand so we made them write it down) and a place they would like to go to. Most students said Jamaica or the US. One said he would like to go to Heaven. Another said Iraq, but spelled it eRock.

They're always very polite and greet us with "Miss." Everything is "Miss, yes Miss" or "Thank you Miss", or "Good morning Miss." It's been a struggle trying to understand their accents. I'll ask the class if they have any questions, then I can't understand anything they say. I asked a student to repeat his question twice that he finally gave up and said, "Miss, nevermind Miss." Later the students were talking with our field director and told her that Americans can't hear very well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

miss...you should post your outdoor hippie loving experience. How is everything going? Keep up the posting--so much more enjoyable than work. Take care miss. Miss you much!!

Anonymous said...

miss, how are ya miss? any luck on the gold digging? those kids must be the dream students of every teacher! hey, if you understand what i say, you will have no problem understnading those kids. <3 f

Anonymous said...

will they let you tie rocks to the little kids and put them on rope so they can get the gold for you? you could have like 5 of them going at a time. you could tell them you were going to make a gold trophy, then actually make a gold trophy but then just give the gold trophy to yourself.