Our teaching experience began every day with some mad-dashin', last-minute prep stress coupled with the delight of sharing meals with Josh and Jennifer (our fellow newbies). You are looking at Jess' [soon-to-be] famous millwheat pancakes! Ямар гоё юм бэ!
Our first day was one of the most tedious as far as the tangible things that needed to be prepared. Our grammar focus for the first 7 days included the simple past, past continuous, and simple past verb tenses. Ex. "While we were preparing for class we wanted to cry." (Past Cont.) Or, "I had thought about quitting the last couple days but the Lord lifted my burden and it was a great success." (Past Perfect)
Most activities required us to do a little pre-teaching including explaining new vocab, giving instructions for activities, etc. Here, J & J are introducing some new words for their activity. We went back-and-forth between us two couples, each one usually building on the next. Our leader Aleta really laid a lot of it out for us beforehand so we just had to take the concepts and make them work for our own individual preferences.
Drawing off some creativity from another teammate, along with a good idea from Jennifer, we came up with the "Verb Vest" activity. Partners ran around the room grabbing the right Post-it slips off the wall and applying them to their partner's vest. Each person had to shout out the verb in the correct tense and stick it on the sign. Nearly all of our activities required our students to get up and get talking. This is vastly different than the way we, and certainly they, are used to learning. Like Aleta said, it's always the "wa-waaa-wa-waa-wa" from the front of the classroom. Many of our students were fairly sharp with the grammar but could barely get a sentence out of their mouth. By the end of the two weeks they all had improved dramatically!
On days 9 and 10 the students (which were all English teachers) got to do the teaching. Here we see "The Knot Game" which practices using prepositions: "step over our arms", "go through...", etc. This is considered a "practice" activity because there is no new information being exchanged. They are just using what they know and nothing is hidden...except maybe the way out of the knot! :) The vast majority of all our activities are considered "communicative" because they require the exchange of unknown information.
Now, you might think the gal on the left is on her cell phone, which, I guess she is, but she has a nifty little dictionary/translator on her phone which we let her use...most of the time. It was hard at times being in a role where you have to lay the smack down every once in a while, but amazingly, just raising your hand and waiting until everybody else stops and looks is unbelievably reliable! For me knowing the right balance of how much to let the students speak in Mongolian vs. English was pretty difficult.
For us in our Mongolian class, we would be lost if our instructors never spoke English. Hundreds of questions have been cleared up with just a few quick words in English and then we move on. Our language learning experience really gave us empathy for our students.
PARTY TIME!
After the students finished teaching, we passed out the ice cream, milk, cookies, chips, water, and had a great hour or more of just socializing together. It was amazing to experience the closeness we attained after just a few days together. We learned about their families, holidays, customs, relationships, and the list goes on. The program we offered here, and much more so our Excel program (which we'll teach next year), is unlike anything they've experienced. The Lord has used this custom designed program to pierce a deep niche in the education system here in Mongolia. Now that we are in UB, word is starting to really spread about our program and we can only pray that God would raise up more teachers from the US and Canada to come join the work.
Here we are with all our students! In case you're wondering why some of them are hardly or not even smiling, it is because in Mongolia it is customary not to smile for pictures...we're kinda working on changing that one! :)
While J, J, J, & Aleta were preparing the scores and certificates, I got to teach them "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" Now, you might have sung that a hundred times, but consider this: Imagine standing in front of 13 people who have heard of Jesus but do not know him. Who is this baby King? Why are ALL THE ANGELS OF HEAVEN worshiping him and singing this good news? What is the song asking when it beckons us to, "Join the triumph of the skies"? What is glory and why would we give it to him?! What does it mean that God and sinners can now be reconciled?! And what does this have to do with that peaceful child, mercy mild, lying in a manger?
By the eighth day I was a gonner, but God lifted my burden and J&J gave us a little extra help. We were all brought to the max and plenty of sin was revealed all around. What an amazingly loving, perfectly designed trial God gave each of us to make us more into his image. And what a gift and blessing it was to end day 10 the way we did!
One of our vocab words for the week was "triumph". I yelled out, "Now show me 'triumph'", and they all threw up their certificates in victory. It was an amazing two weeks!
Amazingly, ALL the students that finished the course passed. We had one woman, who should have passed with her mouth closed, stop coming for the last few days because of an illness so she missed the test (20% of the total grade), her practice teaching (another 20%) and 4 days of attendance. It was a real let down because she was so sweet and her English was more than good enough to ace the course. That one thing aside, it was a sweet triumph for us and for them and we let them know how great we thought it was. We had about 6 of the students who were cutting it pretty close to the passing mark and we encouraged them to come every day and do everything we asked them. They did it! And they were proud!
For now, we are very glad to be done and have a few days of rest. We love you and are so thankful for you keeping us lifted up during this very difficult time. Tomorrow we are back to language study! Please do feast on the delights of Advent this year and make sure you pay attention to the 3rd and 4th verses of all those Advent and Christmas hymns...our anticipation and longing this season is not for a baby in a manger...
