English Class Update

I seem to be posting here on my Blog only occasionally now - my schedule is busy.  My weeks have generally settled into a pattern of English classes in the village I live in and two other villages every week.  I'm really enjoying the people I work with. I visit Kinder-gardeners in 2 villages and we have a lot of fun.  We've played with colors, numbers and the alphabet; have watched several Power Point songs, with words for fruit (Yummy in My Tummy!) and adjectives (tall/short, fast/slow, etc.).  And at the end of the lesson they like writing the words we used - following dotted lines of the words in English. They are happy with action and writing.  It's a blast! In one village I also work with 1st and 2nd graders in a combined class.  There is a lot of variety there - sometimes they like the lessons, sometimes they focus on something else.  When they aren't interested, I walk around and see what they are doing so they know I am there.  The 7th graders include a few kids who know quite a bit of English and those who know very few words.  One class they liked was a class on Microsoft Word vocabulary in English after someone else gave them a hands-on lesson of Word. My final class with children includes a boy who is about 11 and a girl who is about 6.  They both are really interested and when the lesson is "easier" it's a review for the boy and when it's more "advanced" I try to have a simple variation for the younger one.

I have 5 small groups of women in the 3 villages.  Some have been studying with another Peace Corps volunteer over the past couple of years and have a good start on vocabulary.  Others are new to English and want to proceed very slowly - which is fine with me! The 5 groups total about 12-16 women (and one has 2 school girls too), so everyone gets time to ask questions and read exercises.  And all the women bring something different to each meeting - questions which get me thinking about English in new ways; or great laughter - often at my attempts to pronounce a long, complicated Bulgarian word (definitely laugh-worthy).  These times together are highlights of my week and keep me busy.

I have more refining I need to do with my planning process, but I am feeling more comfortable now.  Once I realized I am NOT an English teacher and that I am offering more casual conversational classes, I felt better.  Our classes are pretty informal which allows personal interests to come through our conversations.  Another neat thing, is if I can't explain something because I don't know the words in Bulgarian yet, someone else in the class who understands usually explains in perfect Bulgarian! I use a couple of "English for Bulgarian" books which I bought here and they are helpful because they explain details in Bulgarian. I only have one copy so I have to take out exercises and information that I may want to use.

Last week I shared a few thoughts about the American holiday of Thanksgiving.  It seems like most had heard of it.  And there was interest in the menu.....the only thing not familiar here was cranberries.  I think canned cranberries might be in grocery stores in the bigger cities.