School Days, School Days

First day of school? Fantastico!

I will admit when I signed up for the school, I intended only to obtain a certificate that would enable me to get English-teaching jobs overseas, and to have fun in a new country. I didn't expect to actually LEARN anything. That made today a bit of a shock.

My instructor, Beth, is an intelligent, delightful older lady from Zimbabwe. She clearly has a lot of teaching experience, and has a true passion for teaching. We were given a very thick instructional manual, which will be our coursework for the month. Today was pretty intense, learning various pedagocical theories for language teaching. It was also fun, as some of the activities were non-cheesy way for the 15 students in the class to get to know one another.
My classmates run the gamut from young to old, and come from such places as Australia, Sweden, Denmark, England, Brazil, and, of course, the US.

One of the most useful things Beth did was to teach a 15-minute lesson entirely in Shona. Prior to the lesson, I wasn't entirely on board with the idea of teaching languages completely as immersion. Now, since I can greet people and count to ten in a language I'd never heard of until this morning, I understand how powerful immersion classes can be.

After class, I saw a supermercado gigante. It was two stories tall! I thought I could just pop in for a minute. Thirty minutes and two rides on the shopping cart escalator later, I left, armed with ingredients for tonight's dinner. I set off to finish my walk home. I started walking, four bags of groceries in hand, and kept walking and walking, and walking...
I had walked a little too far. Though I was late getting home, I think Bri forgave me when She tasted the chicken lo mein I had made. Now, I'm full, tired, and have an hour or two of homework to do.