Same Same But Different

I’ve just finished my first two days teaching; on Saturday I taught four two-hour classes and today I had three two-hour classes. That’s a total of fourteen hours over the weekend which is allot of teaching! What really takes the time is the lesson preparation: the planning, the photocopying, the gluing and sticking. I spent ten hours at school on Friday just planning for the weekend and even then I was still having to prepare things at the last minute. I’m told lesson planning becomes easier as time goes on, but for the moment it remains long and tiring. Although the planning is a pain, the teaching itself is great. The three groups of children I’ve taught have all been really well behaved. They range in age from 6 to 13 but are all very well disciplined and rarely, if ever, misbehave. The younger ones in particular are a delight to teach and come out with some very funny stuff. At the beginning of all new classes I give students a chance to ask questions about me as they are always curious about foreign teachers. Most of them just ask where I’m from and how old I am but his one boy raised his hand and said “teacher I have private question”. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but was amused when he whispered in my ear “why does teacher write with his left hand?” in an almost embarrassed voice . I’m guessing being forced to write with your right hand is common practice here as, I’m told, left-handers are very uncommon. My timetable looks great for next week; I have the entire week free bar two hours on Tuesday and Thursday evening. This is more then enough time to recover before the onslaught of next weekend. Sunday is a big night out for the teaching ex-pat community as it marks the end of an ordeal. Tonight I’m going to a cheese and wine evening hosted by a colleague.