Week 2
Phil here,
hello all. Happy Diwali! Its the festival of lights and it is raining softly out side, my kind of weather.
The shower seems to be the tail-end of a thunderstorm that hit last night, the like of which i have never experienced before. To those of you who know me well i will say that it woke me up from a deep sleep, that loud. The thunder was quite unlike the conventional kind, it bounced off of the mountains reverberating down the valley, creating a long steady roar lasting over five seconds. this accompanied by the sound of water beating against the tin roof was indeed a sound to hear.
anyway, school continued this week and all was normal for the first two days. Class IV did not study and performed poorly to say the least on their vocabulary quiz. Class III did considerably better, although it was apparent that not all were equally prepared. We have begun to teach Class III the perfect, imperfect, and pluperfect past tense. they say that they know all of these already, but our exercises with them thus far have proven that although they indeed have a foundation, the finer points need to be refined. i understand their plight however, unlike the beautiful regularity of the Latin language English is a muddled mess of irregular verbs.
Class II has continued to learn about the verb "to be". they are at about ninety percent accuracy in the present tense and i believe it is time to move the the past. The class still proves to be unwieldy and hard to understand. they seem to know more than Class I, but at times i wonder. Often we find ourselves repeating the same instruction many times before they all listen, where as Class I is very attentive and are eager to perform the tasks set before them. Class I continues with time and are making rather startling progress. We soon hope to move on the the harder times (8:47 and other non multiple of five minutes). they are making a "My Day" poster and seem to be enjoying that immensely.
For the later half of the week though, things have not been normal. the school needs the mortar in the walls replaced (the construction technique of the village is a wood frame with bamboo interwoven into the gaps covered in cement or mortar)and as a result the classrooms were far to dust to teach in. So, SM decided to begin preparations for the upcoming interscholastic sport day. this includes running, cockfighting (not what you are thinking), a math competition, pillow fighting, and marching. the marching is of great interested to Eliza and myself, and has been the focus of their training thus far. it is all rather amusing to watch, especially when the younger students get involved and are naturaly not in sync with the older students.
it is not all fun though, Eliza and i are rather put off by the fact that students out of line may be struck by one of the teachers. this is usually sharp but not too hard, but regardless it is hard to watch. Fear not, it does not happen with any regularity at all, i have only seen several students stuck and they usually are told to fix the mistake verbally before hand.
Well that is all for now
hello all. Happy Diwali! Its the festival of lights and it is raining softly out side, my kind of weather.
The shower seems to be the tail-end of a thunderstorm that hit last night, the like of which i have never experienced before. To those of you who know me well i will say that it woke me up from a deep sleep, that loud. The thunder was quite unlike the conventional kind, it bounced off of the mountains reverberating down the valley, creating a long steady roar lasting over five seconds. this accompanied by the sound of water beating against the tin roof was indeed a sound to hear.
anyway, school continued this week and all was normal for the first two days. Class IV did not study and performed poorly to say the least on their vocabulary quiz. Class III did considerably better, although it was apparent that not all were equally prepared. We have begun to teach Class III the perfect, imperfect, and pluperfect past tense. they say that they know all of these already, but our exercises with them thus far have proven that although they indeed have a foundation, the finer points need to be refined. i understand their plight however, unlike the beautiful regularity of the Latin language English is a muddled mess of irregular verbs.
Class II has continued to learn about the verb "to be". they are at about ninety percent accuracy in the present tense and i believe it is time to move the the past. The class still proves to be unwieldy and hard to understand. they seem to know more than Class I, but at times i wonder. Often we find ourselves repeating the same instruction many times before they all listen, where as Class I is very attentive and are eager to perform the tasks set before them. Class I continues with time and are making rather startling progress. We soon hope to move on the the harder times (8:47 and other non multiple of five minutes). they are making a "My Day" poster and seem to be enjoying that immensely.
For the later half of the week though, things have not been normal. the school needs the mortar in the walls replaced (the construction technique of the village is a wood frame with bamboo interwoven into the gaps covered in cement or mortar)and as a result the classrooms were far to dust to teach in. So, SM decided to begin preparations for the upcoming interscholastic sport day. this includes running, cockfighting (not what you are thinking), a math competition, pillow fighting, and marching. the marching is of great interested to Eliza and myself, and has been the focus of their training thus far. it is all rather amusing to watch, especially when the younger students get involved and are naturaly not in sync with the older students.
it is not all fun though, Eliza and i are rather put off by the fact that students out of line may be struck by one of the teachers. this is usually sharp but not too hard, but regardless it is hard to watch. Fear not, it does not happen with any regularity at all, i have only seen several students stuck and they usually are told to fix the mistake verbally before hand.
Well that is all for now
posted by Eliza and Phil at 10:09 AM
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