TL;DR or Quick Summary
- This was my first full week of teaching and with my regular schedule. It is busy, but not too busy.
- Time seemed to fly by this week; before I knew it, the weekend rolled around.
- Grading essays is tough! I have started to grade the essay so of my masters students and it is a long process.
- Long weekends are long!
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| Map of Poland with phonetic pronunciations |
What's New this Week?
I have started taking Polish classes! While the language is pretty complicated (you modify the ending so of every word for random crazy reasons), I think I will eventually get to the speaking level of a talented six year old. The class is full of Erasmus (international) students and is taught at my university. Since we all have the common language of English, whenever someone gets desperately confused (a frequent occurrence), we can switch back to English.
So far we have focused mainly on pronunciation; which is a very good thing. While I know English has its fair share of hard to pronounce words (I'm looking at you rural), for me Polish is a conglomeration of s, z, c, and more s sounds. We spend the first day practicing making the three different s sounds; then we followed up with different z, t, and c sounds. The instructor has had a lot of practice teaching Polish and is very good about helping us with pronunciation. He is also one of my students in my professor conversation class.
Which brings me to the next news, I have started teaching an English conversation class from professors and graduate students. The class is smaller than I was expecting, 8 people signed up (and only 6 showed up for the first class), but that's not a bad thing. I want to have conversations and debates over silly topics (is a hot dog a sandwich?) and some more serious topics (no really, is a hot dog a sandwich?). About half of the class is from the natural science department and they expressed interest in hearing a research presentation in English, so I might have to break out my skills from my Yeh Lab days. I hope the class will be fairly informal.
Finally, the Erasmus program here has a weekly language exchange event. You can learn a variety of languages (from Russian to French to Greek) and teach people your own. I got a chance to go over some of the Polish vocabulary and phrases from my formal class and I taught others some English tongue twisters. Everyone was disappointed that I did not come prepared with typical Southern slang/expressions. This week, I will come prepared!
This weekend was a quiet one for me. I stayed in Białystok and mainly graded essays (I know, it's an exciting life that I live). The weather was most cooperative; it was cloudy and rainy for most of the weekend so it did not tempt me go venture outside. I was working on my record number of days since I had last seen the sun (I was up to three), when the clouds parted on Sunday. I went out for a walk and ran into some other Erasmus people. We talked, got lost in some woods, and enjoyed the sun (while it lasted).
That's all for this week! Next weekend I will do some traveling and should have more adventures to report on!
Which brings me to the next news, I have started teaching an English conversation class from professors and graduate students. The class is smaller than I was expecting, 8 people signed up (and only 6 showed up for the first class), but that's not a bad thing. I want to have conversations and debates over silly topics (is a hot dog a sandwich?) and some more serious topics (no really, is a hot dog a sandwich?). About half of the class is from the natural science department and they expressed interest in hearing a research presentation in English, so I might have to break out my skills from my Yeh Lab days. I hope the class will be fairly informal.
Finally, the Erasmus program here has a weekly language exchange event. You can learn a variety of languages (from Russian to French to Greek) and teach people your own. I got a chance to go over some of the Polish vocabulary and phrases from my formal class and I taught others some English tongue twisters. Everyone was disappointed that I did not come prepared with typical Southern slang/expressions. This week, I will come prepared!
This weekend was a quiet one for me. I stayed in Białystok and mainly graded essays (I know, it's an exciting life that I live). The weather was most cooperative; it was cloudy and rainy for most of the weekend so it did not tempt me go venture outside. I was working on my record number of days since I had last seen the sun (I was up to three), when the clouds parted on Sunday. I went out for a walk and ran into some other Erasmus people. We talked, got lost in some woods, and enjoyed the sun (while it lasted).
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| Up before the sun is |
Teaching Updates
Last week I assigned my M.A. writing students their first essay; it was about how to best educate students in middle school. The essays were well written, although there were a few translation/idiom errors. After reading through about 3/4 of the essays I noticed several differences between Polish and American styles. Whereas we are often taught to have a thesis statement with justifications at the end of the introduction, many of my students did not state their position until the end of the paper.
Some of the other Fulbrighters that I have talked to said this is because the students want to keep their reader in suspense (much like an American presidential candidate wants to keep Americans in suspense about his acceptance of election results) throughout the paper; they do not want to bias the reader with their opinion. I'm not sure whether or not I agree with the strategy yet.
In my B.A. writing class, I will continue with theme; they will be writing their own stories with a specific theme in mind. I am hoping for some interesting stories!
Finally, in my integrated skills class, I will continue teaching idioms and maybe play a game. Earlier this year, one of my friends introduced me to the game Dixit. In the game, one player describes a card with an abstract picture on it; that player wants to give a vague, but not misleading description. The other players then have to guess with card was the first players from several other cards. It sounds confusing, until you start playing. It is a good way to introduce new vocabulary words and inspire some creative descriptions.
That's all for this week! Next weekend I will do some traveling and should have more adventures to report on!
Bonus Pictures
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| Restaurant in Białystok |
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