One week down

You may have wondered about the silence that ensued after our last post. But don’t worry—we are alive. Mostly. It’s been difficult, but we’re just about finished with our first week of teaching. (We don’t teach on Fridays, so we just have to make it through this afternoon’s classes.)

As some of you already know, Dave and I teach English in two separate programs: I teach in the American program, and he teaches in the British program. Aside from a few differences in grammar and spelling (Dave’s sticking with Canadian pronunciation), there is one major distinction between the two programs—he teaches twice as much as I do.

We don’t know why. That’s just the way it is. His students are younger, and it seems that they have more of a high school schedule. While my students have class with me twice a week, his students meet with him every day except for Friday. So even though I have more students than he does, he is actually in the classroom for a little more than twice as long as I am.

The good news is that he has a set curriculum, so there’s a little less prep time than if he had to come up with everything from scratch. My class, on the other hand, is more of a free for all, so I’m constantly trying to decide what is best to cover in the 160 minutes that I meet with them each week. These are some of the challenges, but with a lot of grace, we’ll be able to adjust to our new responsibilities.

There have also been many blessings this week—like meeting some really sweet students and getting help from the thoughtful teachers who work with us. We appreciate the kindness and generosity that they’ve shown us, and we’re really happy to be part of the team here.

Desiree