To defeat... my mediocre Arabic and refugee illiteracy? Not terribly catchy, but regardless, it was good to finally get the ball rolling on our various projects. Today was our first day of Arabic classes (and consequently our first night of homework) and a more substantial orientation at St. Andrew's, this time discussing the nuts and bolts of lesson planning. We were up and at the Arab Academy by 9 am, where we had a solid three and half hours of class. Normally it would have been four hours, but we had to leave early to make it to St. Andrew's on time. The thought of four straight hours of class makes my college student self want to cry; I'm used to lectures that last an hour and fifteen minutes at most and a lot of self-directed, self-time-managed studying outside of that (in other words, I can take as many study breaks as I want). However, this lesson flew by, and I'm really looking forward to going back tomorrow! We spent today only studying 'Amia (colloquial Arabic), and we'll return to Fus-ha for the rest of the summer. Most of the class was made up of discussion and practicing real-world scenarios, for example one student would be a taxi driver and the other would be a potential customer. We had to practice bargaining with the taxi driver, telling him where to stop, and asking if his meter was working (only half of the taxis in Cairo have meters; these are the white taxis. Black taxis never have meters and require bargaining before riding. However, white taxis often don't use the meter anyway). I was probably the meanest taxi driver of the bunch... I asked for an astronomical price that I doubt any taxi driver here would use. We were assigned just a bit of homework (practicing vocabulary and writing a paragraph), then we headed for St. Andrew's.
At St. Andrew's we had a brief lecture on AMERA (Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance), mainly focusing on the structure of the organization and the services they can provide to our students. The two main components of AMERA, at least in regards to the unaccompanied minors that we will be teaching, are the legal aspect (helping them with paperwork and such) and psycho-social work. The director of the unaccompanied minors division, Chantel, will certainly be a useful contact, though even hearing her mention in passing what some of her cases have experienced was eye-opening. Then we discussed lesson planning strategies with two St. Andrew's teachers. Their presentation was very dynamic, beginning with a game where we had to throw stuffed animals around in a circle and shout out their Arabic and English names. I got hit in the head by a stuffed Barney doll at least twice (p.s. the word for "dinosaur" in Arabic is actually "dinosaur" ... at least that was an easy one!) After that session I feel much more comfortable with my ability to teach, though I'm worried my confidence will erode as soon as I get in front of the class and realize that my students are all at drastically different levels. The day ended with the groups splitting up into their teaching sites and going to visit the ones in the more remote parts of Cairo, but since I'm teaching at the downtown center, I was free to go home. As soon as we got back I took a much-needed nap before starting my homework. Though today was exhausting, I'm excited to finally be on a schedule and defeat some Huns (metaphorically speaking).
No comments:
Post a Comment