The First Month of School

Well, I’m starting week 5 of teaching and just now finding time to update my blog so that tells you something about how busy these last several weeks have been!  The first several weeks of school were pretty exhausting. I went home at the end of the day and pretty much just wanted to sleep.  I guess being in a new country, at a new school, with new co-workers and students who don’t speak my language very well (if at all!!), teaching all new material and new age groups, learning a new schedule,  living in a new apartment, and finding my way around a new town will make a girl more tired than normal. Finally at the beginning of week 5, I feel more comfortable with what I am doing and I think things will start to flow a bit more smoothly now.

Let’s start with my schedule so you can get a picture of my daily work-life.  You can see I am the lucky person who gets 4 Zero Hours and 4 8^th hours. Zero hour starts at 7:10 and 8th hour finishes at 3:45. Everyone has said my schedule is terrible, but to me, being to school at 7 and leaving at 4 is nothing new! And I have those big breaks in between classes where I can stay at school and get stuff done or run home or go to the grocery store.  The main difference, other than the sheer number of different classes, is that I share classes with another teacher. Most of the kids have 5 English lessons a week, but they only see me once or twice and have the other English lessons with someone else. That makes planning interesting because I am not solely in control of what the kids are learning.  I do teach at two different schools which are about a 10 minute walk apart. Most of my classes are in the high school building, but my 6^th and 8^th grade classes are all at the other school. You can see I go to the other school 3 days a week and twice on Thursday. Right now the walk between schools hasn’t been bad, and it is nice to get outside during the day, but I don’t think I will be saying the same thing come January and February. It has been an adjustment to teaching the younger kids, but they are so cute that I have enjoyed it so far. When I go to the other building all of the kids shout and wave and try to talk to me. Most of them are pretty limited to “Hello”, “Hi”, “Good Morning” (even in the afternoon), and “Good-bye” so our conversations are pretty short.

 The other thing about the schedule is how the students are divided. Each grade is divided into groups A, B, C, etc. I am still a little unclear on exactly how that division happens but I know B groups tend to have more English lessons than others. From those divisions, they are divided again for language lessons into smaller groups. So I have Class 10B but I have Group 2 on Monday/Tuesday and Group 1 on Tuesday/Wednesday. Same with 11B and 12A. I see 11B Group 2 three times a week, but I only see 11B Group 1 twice a week. And 12A I see Group 2 on Thursday mornings and Group 1 on Friday afternoon. I also have grade 8C and 8D and then I have a class with 8C and D. At first I thought that meant I would have the kids from my 8C class and my 8D class together in a 2^nd class, but 8D/C is a whole different group of kids. However, that is not the case with 11 A and C. I see 11A and 11C separately on Tuesday and Wednesday and then have a lesson on Thursday with them where they are combined into one class. You can see why it is taking me a while to really get the hang of my schedule!

Classes are 45 minutes each and start on the hour, so there is a 15 minute break between each class. Kids use that time to hang out in the hallways and teachers use that time to go back to the staff room. I am still used to the 5 minute break between classes like we have at home, so 15 seems like a really long time to me! One of the main differences between teaching in Hungary and the US is that teachers don’t have their own classroom. The students have one main classroom where they have a lot of their classes, so they kind of have a “home-base,” but the teachers travel. I think I prefer the US method of the teachers having their own room. It would be nice to have somewhere that is “mine” other than a 3’ by 2’ desk that is right next to 3 others (2 on the side, 1 in front). But the plus side of having a staff room is that we have little mini “lunches” every hour (You know what I mean upstairs lunch group!!) It is really nice to have the time to chat with colleagues (or vent to them depending on the previous lesson!), sit down and have a drink or something to eat, and in my case make sure I am teaching the right thing!

 When the bell rings on the hour, that is the signal for teachers to go to their classes and usually no one is in that big of a hurry to get there. It isn’t uncommon to stay for another 1 or 2 (maybe 3 or 4 haha) minutes and then head to class. This took some getting used to for me and to be honest, it still freaks me out. Us American teachers are trained that we better be in class, ready to go, when that bell rings, so the first week or so I had little panic attacks every time the bell would ring and no one would move. My inner-American kept saying “Come on!! What are you doing?! The almighty BELL rang, you should be in class!! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” while my developing outer-Hungarian adopted a relaxed demeanor, finished up my drink and conversation, gathered my materials, and then strolled to class. At the end class it is the same. If the bell rings and we are still going the students don’t panic and act horrified, they wait until I say “OK, we’re done.” 

 Once I arrive to class and unlock the door for students to get in, they really do all stand until I ask them to sit. It wasn’t a myth! This is still weird for me too and sometimes I get busy getting all my materials organized and forget to tell them to sit, so I look up and they are all still standing, waiting, looking at me expectantly. Whoops.  Most of the kids also wait until I leave the classroom to leave. There is no lining up by the door and packing up 5 minutes early. This also surprised me the first couple days when I expected them to rush the door when the bell rang like my American kids do.  Another big difference is the noise level in the classroom when they are doing pair or group work. Instead of the explosion of noise that usually results in putting kids in pairs and groups in the US, Hungarian students are SO QUIET! They actually whisper to each other when they talk. It is unreal. I wish there was some way to bring that tendency back to Lakeshore! But other than those two things, they are normal students with all the good that entails and all the bad.

 My main job here is to get the students to talk more so they have to use their English. They have become pretty good at doing “classroom English” as I call it – filling in worksheets, reading pretend scenarios, identifying irregular verbs, etc. but actually using the English they learn in a conversational way is still something that many of them are uncomfortable with. During the first several weeks most of them were afraid to talk to me because they didn’t want to speak English, but since my Hungarian is much worse than their English, they didn’t have a choice! Now they are getting more comfortable and are starting to participate more. I have spent a lot of time so far just getting the kids comfortable with me so they are willing to try and speak, even if that means they make mistakes.