A good day teaching wise, but more and new information about my obligations.

So I have been here just over 2 weeks, the longest I have been away for five years and I do feel fairly settled at the school, but today I have been given a bit more information about the community classes that the school runs.

When I had my interview and follow up chat, we spent most of our time talking about the regular children and I must confess I thought that they would be the bulk of my teaching so I have been both a little surprised but also pleased with regard to the small amount of teaching I have been doing - two or three classes per day, except Friday. Although there is a general curriculum and we are following a book too, as a result there has been time to organise resources and in truth the teaching though nice has been tiring so I have been thinking perfect, this is doable.  However, now I might have to work 2-4 on community classes each day including Saturday, so that is a lot more work and of course there is no curriculum or book.  I knew I would have to contribute to these classes, but I did not realise how much and I actually did not want too much teaching where I would have to prepare lots of material or work out the sow, as that is what is so exhausting with teaching.  For instance today I taught for three classes, prepared materials for the rest of the time, finished at 3.30 and will have to write up some information re how it went too later today.   So the job may be more challenging than anticipated especially if I have to have early mornings.    My head does not seem to have been told that owing to my health long days may be an issue, and the thought of working 6 days a week again definitely does not grab me. My contract specifies Monday to Friday and says nothing about the weekends and if I do have to work then my hopes of getting away to Biskek occasionally will not come to fruition. However, I think that I will be able to cope and the best strategy is to take it a step at a time and if it does become problematic let everyone know then as I think everyone is trying to be accommodating.

Teaching wise it was an interesting day.  The focus of the lessons is of course to get the children speaking, but it is also important that they develop some written skills too. They also like books and so far each has been given a general notebook and a classwork book that follows the syllabus. So I was surprised last week to be given yet another book for the children. Both the classwork book and the workbook have material that consolidates what the children are doing.  BUT given that they cannot read English yet how to tackle this aspect of the course.  They had a little dialogue, one that they are familiar with by rote and they had to fill in the gaps. So I put the example correct dialogue on the board, but got a few of the children to come to the board and write the answers. So in theory all the children had the written example in front of them.  Once they completed that they had to link a phrase from picture 1, 2,3, 4 with another phrase from picture 1,2,3,4 and although most of them managed it, it was a real struggle getting them to understand the concepts and to avoid them copying incorrect answers.  However, it is early days so I am sure bit by bit some of the written forms will make more sense.

The other nice thing is that I was preparing some material later in the computer room based round the one English book I have with me, and a few of the children came up and enjoyed looking through it (Walking through the Jungle - a favourite from Senegal times) and so I started singing it to them and about 3 of the girls and the 4 of the boys joined in and really sang it beautifully.  I think that their reaction confirms the importance of books for them.  So we really need to get some more.   I also began teaching the little ones SATPIN (phonics) by getting them to take things out of my bag that start with those letters and for some strange reason I was able to ensure that each of them got an apple for a!

Then when I got home my room had been enhanced with a Kyrgyz box for my clothes which is lovely, there was a horse munching all the apples I have failed to pick up in the orchard, which is also lovely,  and it was sufficiently hot for me to sit out and start reading Tolstoy's biography, which was even better after the miserable weather this weekend.