22-25.09.07 - Second week of teaching

22.09.07: As I hadn’t found my materials on Friday for teaching the next week I went in to the office for a few hours and was able to find most of what I need. I still don’t have much of a plan for my teenage class - hopefully I’ll have a revelation. Part of the problem with going into the office is that usually other people are there and they have only 4 computers (all in varying degrees of poor condition) and the other people there are usually distracting. So it was nice to have gone in and no one else be there. When I was arriving at the office there was a guy working on his car in the parking lot who started to talk to me as I was approaching. I could tell that he wanted some help but I only understood his hand motions and when he said “open the door”; so he was working on the turn signal and wanted me to test it... I met a friend who lives just down the street to go to the vigil at the Church of the Annunciation which is also just down the street. I had not seen this church as the two times I have walked around the neighbourhood I went in two of the opposite directions... It is a very beautiful church of wood but very small inside-we often had to shift around for people passing by. After the service we walked around through a park and ate at a pizzeria.

23.09.07: I went to the Church of the Annunciation again today for liturgy at 8. It was as packed as the day before but wonderful nonetheless. This was the first church I’ve been to that there was only one priest and no deacon-a deacon served at the vigil but not at liturgy. So Fr. Andrei had a lot of work to do - especially considering how many people there were for confession-he even came out before communion for that purpose. When it came to the homily I actually understood about the first third of it but then got lost... After church I had a look at the church’s bookstore (earlier I had decided that I should find a copy of Fr. Arseny in the original to try and read). I was in luck and they had a copy but I had to go change some more money, however, when I returned about 30 minutes later the book was gone. So I was told to come again soon and there would be one... At 1.30 that afternoon I met a friend to visit Park Pobedi (Victory Park) which commemorates WWII. We were going to go to the historical museum but it was closed for a meeting of some political party so we walked around the park looking at various statues and machinery from the war. In the park there is also a mosque, a synagogue and an Orthodox chapel (which we stepped in for a few minutes of Vespers). As the history museum was closed we decided to go to the museum for the war of 1812 but that turned out to have closed about 10 minutes previous. So at that point after having seen a lot of the park we gave up. I met a friend and their dad (who is quite serious about his table tennis) in the evening for a few rousing rounds of table tennis at an exercise center near my flat after which we walked around another park in our neighbourhood. In other news I finally bought some kefir to try; a friend had told me to try the 1% as it’s not such a big shock to the system. So I bought some 1% and a box of cornflakes and have already grown to like the kefir.

24.09.07: I realized this morning when I started looking over my plans for the week that I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. I looked over my books and notes for a few hours and thought that I was pretty prepared but when I got to the office I realized how much copying and cutting of papers I had to do that I didn’t get to school but 10 minutes early. At that point I was told that I was in a different room that day (a room which I like better as the door actually closes and it’s at the end of the hall). On the way from the metro I realized that I had forgotten my audio tapes at the flat, however, they had extra’s of the one’s I needed except the one for my elementary class. Once again the elementary class was a disaster-no matter how much I plan something has always gone wrong. I implemented some of the suggestions from other teachers upon the one boy who usually starts disrupting class such as not letting him have a seat, making him stand in the corner, taking his books away, having him stand in the hallway... but none of them helped. When he was standing in the hallway the class went normally but I didn’t know how long I should make him stand outside so I let him in after a few minutes. Once again the other boy in the class forgot his book so I, not remembering that I could make copies, let him use my book which was a mistake as not having a book made me confused as to where we were supposed to be in the lesson... So towards the end of the class when things couldn’t get much worse I decided to skip ahead and play bingo... I had found a great website which makes bingo cards so I printed out one with animals and one with shapes, which had names of colours on them. What I realized after I had given out the shapes card they simply started colouring on them (after I had tried to explain what they were supposed to actually do...) At that point I realized that all the cards were the same so everyone who listens correctly would get bingo at the same time. I decided to ignore this fact unless if the children realized it - well, they did realize... I did have a backup bingo card that was blank so I told them to list off some animals which they would put on their blank cards. They listed off a bunch but by that time the class was over... After this disaster I had my new upper-intermediate class which was supposed to be of four people; however, only two showed up and ten minutes late. For a first class it went very well, the two students are friends and so didn’t mind doing silly exercises just to be talking. The only problem was that we went through the lesson really quickly so I had to add a writing exercise that I hadn’t planned on doing. On top of that we played adjective/homonym dominoes, which, thankfully, took about twenty minutes. And fifteen minutes after that class was my intermediate class... There was a new, trial student in class whom I hope stays as then we would have two pairs of students (so as to do the all-important pair work). This class went well also, other than getting through the material quicker than I had planned. I had a past perfect activity which took some time and we played dominoes at the end, which I hadn’t planned on doing. I still don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with my teenagers...

25.09.07: I did not want to get out of bed today...however I made myself and started preparing for my classes. I decided simply to go with the book for my teenage class. So after much suffering I figured out what to do and it actually went pretty well. I again only had three students at first; the fourth showed up about an hour late. So after this class I had my 30 minutes to prepare for the next class which I thought would suffice until I found that I would have 2 trial students and had to make a bunch of copies; I also had forgotten to make copies of worksheets so had to do that as well and then find the place on the audio tape (yes, audio tape) for the lesson. I gave the students some review sheets of prepositions and present perfect vs. past simple when I realized I still needed a few copies so I let them work while I made copies. I happened to see the security guard by the office so he started talking to me. All I was able to understand was saying his name, something about southern america, something about fish, something about my beard, asking how old I was and the name of the other security guard. However this conversation took several minutes... So I returned to class and the rest of the class went pretty quickly. We actually didn’t cover all of the lesson that I had planned (which is not so bad as now I don’t have to plan quite as much for Thursday).

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation

The church bookstore

The Church of the Annunciation

The Church of the Annunciation


The Church of the Annunciation

The promenade of Park Pobedi

St. George the defender of Moscow

Monument to other nations that fought against Hitler


Artifacts of WWII at Park Pobedi



A big cannon and I

Artifacts of WWII at Park Pobedi

Park Pobedi

Chapel at Park Pobedi

Same

Same


Overlooking Park Pobedi from a hill

Cross in memory of WWII on hill at Park Pobedi

Overlooking Moscow from a hill at Park Pobedi


Statue of Kutuzov (General during the war of 1812)