Have I really not written for that long? It's because I am busy having new adventures to write about. But mainly school is keeping me busy. Here are a few school tales:
The basics
My school is pretty great. It is conveniently located about a two minute walk from my ger, and it is painted an overwhelming sea green color. you can see it from almost anywhere in BX, so it's a great landmark. School time is from 8am until 7pm, but different grades come at different times. It is an eco-school, meaning that we have plants scattered about! Also we have a fish tank. On my first day of school we had about 5 fish, and then within about month we just had a very very dirty fish tank. I have 8 fellow english teachers (counterparts) that I team teach with - 5th to 11th grades. Sometimes, there is no power at school, which phases no one, and select students get to walk around and ring an actual bell to let everyone know it is time to change class.
Team Teaching
Team teaching is where both I and a Mongolian English teacher teach a class together. The goal is to not only help students learn english, but to build the capacity in my english teacher counterparts. So in a perfect world, I am not supposed to ever be the only teacher in the classroom. However, this doesnt always happen. One day, my counterpart wanted to leave class when we were playing review games. For one of the review games, the mongolian language was needed. I expressed my concerns, and to combat this, my counterpart appointed an 11 year old to be my co teacher for the day. Even though you cold tell the girl really wanted to play the review games, she stuck true to her role and helped me teach and corral the other students.
Cracking up
I know when I speak Mongolian, I say things incorrectly all the time. That is just a given fact. Like the time I told my host mom, a cow (okir) was death (okil) and who really knows what other gems have come out of my mouth. It is all part of learning a launguage. Similarly English words get mispronounced by Mongolians all the time in class. Most times, I can keep a serious face, but sometimes I lose it. Here are just a few of my favorites:
Peace Corps: Peace Corps gets said constantly as Peace Corpse. This reminds me of all the tales I heard about the former CMDD skater with the such a name. I can only hope in her country of service, that this was also a common mispronunciation.
Bear: We were reviewing animals one day in class, and the picture was a bear. The student I called on however, just so politely said, ‘this is a beer!’ I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Sensible: Probably my favorite so far. While going through students one by one to check pronunciation for this word, one student so confidently blurted out ‘sexy-bull’. The class started cracking up first, and unfortunately after that I lost it for a moment.
Names
Mongolian names are very long and just hard for me to say. When school first started I had the best intentions to learn all of the students name, but after about just a week, that quickly changed to me just trying to pronounce names correctly when told to me. After the first entire quarter of school, I know 4 students names (one of which I am pretty sure I say quite incorrectly, but the student just entertains me). Usually I just get by with pointing at students. One day, however, in 5th grade, we circled up and played a name game where you introduce yourself, and then introduce all the people who have introduced themselves before you. Naturally i went first, meaning I just had to introduce myself. When all the students finished, my counterpart teacher felt the need to embarrass me, and said, now April will introduce everyone!!!! Let's just say that took me about 10 long minutes and I completely ruined everyone's name.
Saying hello-
Some kids overwhelmingly like me, and other kids are very indifferent, nevertheless, everyone will say, shout and scream hello whenever they see me. Not just one time, but 8 times until I start ignoring them. Back in Xorolloo soum, when there were only 20 kids total, it was endearing, and now it tests one's patience. Sometimes they just cycle through all the ways to say hello, good morning, good evening, hi, etc. and then once I physically pass them, the goodbyes, bye byes, see yous begin. Others will say hello, and when I answer, go the other direction giggling. For the students who like me, there are additional steps to greeting me, which include running across fields to catch up with me just to say hello, walking me home, and the ones who when they see me, proceed to tell me every english word they know in no particular order. There is this one student, who whenever she see me runs up from behind me and grabs me to say hello. I rarely see her, and so this is always a scary surprise hello...I am still getting used to it.
Apple for teacher
In the states, students might give teachers apples. here in dino land, students sometimes give me delicious delicious dried cheese curd.
Coming up next:
The Chicago Bulls come to my ger to make breakfast huushuur.
The basics
My school is pretty great. It is conveniently located about a two minute walk from my ger, and it is painted an overwhelming sea green color. you can see it from almost anywhere in BX, so it's a great landmark. School time is from 8am until 7pm, but different grades come at different times. It is an eco-school, meaning that we have plants scattered about! Also we have a fish tank. On my first day of school we had about 5 fish, and then within about month we just had a very very dirty fish tank. I have 8 fellow english teachers (counterparts) that I team teach with - 5th to 11th grades. Sometimes, there is no power at school, which phases no one, and select students get to walk around and ring an actual bell to let everyone know it is time to change class.
 |
| my school from atop the neighboring mountaintop |
Team Teaching
Team teaching is where both I and a Mongolian English teacher teach a class together. The goal is to not only help students learn english, but to build the capacity in my english teacher counterparts. So in a perfect world, I am not supposed to ever be the only teacher in the classroom. However, this doesnt always happen. One day, my counterpart wanted to leave class when we were playing review games. For one of the review games, the mongolian language was needed. I expressed my concerns, and to combat this, my counterpart appointed an 11 year old to be my co teacher for the day. Even though you cold tell the girl really wanted to play the review games, she stuck true to her role and helped me teach and corral the other students.
Cracking up
I know when I speak Mongolian, I say things incorrectly all the time. That is just a given fact. Like the time I told my host mom, a cow (okir) was death (okil) and who really knows what other gems have come out of my mouth. It is all part of learning a launguage. Similarly English words get mispronounced by Mongolians all the time in class. Most times, I can keep a serious face, but sometimes I lose it. Here are just a few of my favorites:
Peace Corps: Peace Corps gets said constantly as Peace Corpse. This reminds me of all the tales I heard about the former CMDD skater with the such a name. I can only hope in her country of service, that this was also a common mispronunciation.
Bear: We were reviewing animals one day in class, and the picture was a bear. The student I called on however, just so politely said, ‘this is a beer!’ I couldn’t help but chuckle.
Sensible: Probably my favorite so far. While going through students one by one to check pronunciation for this word, one student so confidently blurted out ‘sexy-bull’. The class started cracking up first, and unfortunately after that I lost it for a moment.
Names
Mongolian names are very long and just hard for me to say. When school first started I had the best intentions to learn all of the students name, but after about just a week, that quickly changed to me just trying to pronounce names correctly when told to me. After the first entire quarter of school, I know 4 students names (one of which I am pretty sure I say quite incorrectly, but the student just entertains me). Usually I just get by with pointing at students. One day, however, in 5th grade, we circled up and played a name game where you introduce yourself, and then introduce all the people who have introduced themselves before you. Naturally i went first, meaning I just had to introduce myself. When all the students finished, my counterpart teacher felt the need to embarrass me, and said, now April will introduce everyone!!!! Let's just say that took me about 10 long minutes and I completely ruined everyone's name.
Saying hello-
Some kids overwhelmingly like me, and other kids are very indifferent, nevertheless, everyone will say, shout and scream hello whenever they see me. Not just one time, but 8 times until I start ignoring them. Back in Xorolloo soum, when there were only 20 kids total, it was endearing, and now it tests one's patience. Sometimes they just cycle through all the ways to say hello, good morning, good evening, hi, etc. and then once I physically pass them, the goodbyes, bye byes, see yous begin. Others will say hello, and when I answer, go the other direction giggling. For the students who like me, there are additional steps to greeting me, which include running across fields to catch up with me just to say hello, walking me home, and the ones who when they see me, proceed to tell me every english word they know in no particular order. There is this one student, who whenever she see me runs up from behind me and grabs me to say hello. I rarely see her, and so this is always a scary surprise hello...I am still getting used to it.
Apple for teacher
In the states, students might give teachers apples. here in dino land, students sometimes give me delicious delicious dried cheese curd.
 |
| it's number twister! |
Coming up next:
The Chicago Bulls come to my ger to make breakfast huushuur.
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