I've had three weeks of teaching experience so far, and it sure has been an experience! My schedule is arranged so that every other week I teach the 11th-13th grades and every other week I teach the 8th-10th grades. The first two weeks were pretty easy, since it was mainly introductions and questions. My students have asked my some really intense and unexpected questions! My very first question in my very first class was "Do you have a boyfriend?". O_o Oookay. Pretty much all of my classes asked me this question, and I eventually started to combat with: "Why? Are you interested?". That got them to be quiet! Other questions included, "Do you own a gun?", "Will you sing your national anthem?", "What do you think about Guantanamo Bay?", "Are you a Creationist or an evolutionist?", and finally the ever popular Obama/McCain question. Good grief!
Anyway, after the awkward question time, I had my older students play the balloon game. In this game, you have groups of two students represent a famous American person or group. Then you pretend that all these people are on a sinking hot air balloon, which is about to crash into shark infested waters! The only way to survive is to start throwing people overboard. So each group has to defend themselves by saying how important they are to American society and by giving good reasons why other groups should jump. Usually President Bush was the first to leap overboard, but one class chose Michael Phelps on the basis that he could outswim the sharks!
This game was a little too advanced for the younger students, so I had my 9th and 10th grade classes play a story game. Each students wrote a sentence answering a "who" questions, then they folded the paper over and passed it to the next student. That student, who couldn't see the first student's answer, wrote a sentece answering a "what" question, etc. In some classes this worked and in some it didn't. Mainly because they decided to cheat by only writing one word and not a complete sentence, or they got confused about to whom they should pass their paper.
With one 8th grade class, I did body parts, which was pretty fun, and in another one we did a big brainstorm on the board about topics related to the US that they would be intereted in learning. This resulted in them running up to the board and writing names of various American TV shows, none of which I really watch, but are super popular for 13 year old German kids, apparently.
The next week, I prepared a lesson on the death penalty for the older students, which went pretty well. I had them divide into groups and debate the issue, one group being pro and one against. They sparked some interesting discussions!
Then these last two weeks I've been on vacation. Yes, that's right, TWO WEEK VACATION!!! Fall Break has a totally different meaning here. I did a bit of traveling and have been going to numerous different festivals around where I live. I've been to Viezfest, an apple cider festival, Mondscheinfest, a full moon festival, and of course, Oktoberfest (not the one in Munich, the one in my hometown). Viezfest was really cool. When you first get there, you buy a mug, which has a ribbon attached so you can where it around your neck. Then you take the mug to all the different vendors to try their apple cider! Cool idea, huh?
Anyway, since that town was having its Oktoberfest at the same time, we went to have fun at that too. Mainly by riding the Ferris wheel. The landscape is sooo gorgeous!!!!!
As you can tell, I was somewhat unnerved by the height, but it was still awesome! Mondscheinfest was a sort of traditional festival where vendors would wear traditional German outfits and sell their homemade stuff. We didn't stay too long because the weather got really cold, but I did get to enjoy some delicious "Atlantic" Flammkuchen!Oktoberfest in Homburg was pretty fun. One of the stands was selling Mexican food, which was actually pretty aunthentic tasting (or I could just be desperate for it). Another stand I really liked was selling nuts from around the world. I don't think they were actually international, but the vendors coated all their nuts in really interesting flavors such as strawberry yogurt and raffealo (sp?), one of my favorite German candies. One night they had a Hungarian swing band perform, whose lead singer was this tiny old man. They were hilarious and really, really good musicians.
Anyway, I also spent a day in Luxembourg, which was a lot of fun. It was kind of hard to find our way around sometimes, though. Luxembourg has three national languages, Luxembourgish, German, and French, but all the signs were in French and most people spoke French. Even when you spoke German, its like they assumed that was your preference and they would continue speaking French. Oh, well, we figured it out. First, we saw the American Military Cemetary, where General Patton is buried. I wasn't even aware he was buried there until I got there.
Then we ate lunch at Quick: Quality Burger Restaurant, only because we weren't willing to pay 20 Euros a plate to eat at a cafe. After that we toured an old Medieval fortress, which was pretty creepy from the inside.
The fortress makes up part of the old city wall, which is considered to have the most beautiful view in all of Europe. Not sure if mypicture taking really did it justice.
You probably just had to be there to experience it. After the view, we went to an historic art museum which showed the history of the city through art. It would have been more interesting if all the descriptions weren't in French!I also spent a day in Trier, a city near the German/Luxembourg border. Trier has the oldest Roman ruins on German soil. I took a self-guided tour through the old city gate.
I also toured the Dom and the Basilika, two giant churches.I spent the rest of my vacation, trying to get settled in Homburg and figuring out my paper work issues, which, of course, wasn't as easy as I had been anticipating. Hopefully, that will all be worked out this week. Anyway, I think that's more than enough for now.
Till next time!
