Wednesday, April 29, 2009

As my parents remind me regularly, it's been too long since I've written. I guess I've been too caught up in the baseball debate taking place on John's blog to pay attention to my own (GO RED SOX). Not too much is new here really, just trying to get through the rest of the school year. It got cut by about 3 weeks because of the elections on June 6th, so after this week I only have 3 weeks of classes. The downside of this is that I lose this time with my students, and it makes it tough to get everything done that I'd hoped to. And by tough, I mean impossible. But they've definitely made progress--they now mostly greet me in English on the street and have started arguing with each other in English in the classroom (I have to let them off the hook when they yell "that is my pen!" at the kid who took their pen).

John is visiting Selibaby this week, which has been great. He's used his time here to catch up on internet stuff, raid our book collection and chase children away from our wall. Oh, and along with Kim we spent about an hour yesterday pouring water down ant/termite hills. This is what we do for fun here. I'm not joking. Sometimes we draw on the dog too. The power has been out for a couple days now, so that cuts down on your options! Being bored takes on a whole new meaning here.

I also recently started a prep class for the 6th year students who will take the BAC in June. Basically, it's the end of high school exam that determines if you even get the option of going to college. Nationwide, about 10% of students pass. That number is usually lower here in the south and in other rural areas. So every Friday, I run an optional class to get students ready for the English section of the BAC. They never learn how to take this kind of test (during the first class, I gave them a practice test and most didn't understand the format of multiple choice questions...the real test is in 2 months), so I'm trying to work with them on how to go about answering reading comprehension, make educated guesses, budget their time, etc. Most students didn't even attempt the essay question on the practice test, and almost all of them said "teacher, it is very hard!" as if I had written it to torture them. It was a word for word copy of the BAC from 2004. I only have time to do 6 or 7 classes, but hopefully it will help a little and I can start the same class earlier next year. It's been fun working with older students too, and quite a change from teacher first years!

OK, that's all the news from here. But for being such good sports you get a new photo link! Enjoy!

new picts

Thursday, April 2, 2009

New Pictures

Hi all,

We're back from Nouakchott with our sterile and surprisingly energetic puppy--you'd never know from looking at her that she had surgery 2 days ago, except for the little line of stitched on her belly. Poor thing.

Here are some new pictures--some from Shelby and Luis' birthdays, and then some from our trip. I put up lots of puppy pictures for you, Allison! She's a sweet dog : )

Enjoy!