Saturday, September 22, 2012

I know who I'm teaching now

The way the school years work here is like this:  you start in primary school for 6 years.  After that comes middle school, called college here with a soft 'g'.  I'll be teaching the second year of middle schoolers.  They go for 4 years, starting as 6th years and leaving when they are 3rd years.  High school (lycee) is 2nd years, 1st years and terminal year, so 3 years.  I will be teaching 5th year middle schoolers, I'll have two classes of about 80 kids and I'll be teaching math.  The ages should range from 14 year olds to 20ish year olds.  I did practice teaching on 3rd year kids and I only had 7, so this will be a step down in their french skills, while increasing the number by a factor of 10.  I have no idea what to expect, but I really just need to be scary the first couple of weeks and then they will behave better for the year.  I start on October 1st.  Hopefully I'll have some pictures with my students sometime soon.  I just bought a book on learning Dioula, so hopefully my skills will start to skyrocket.  Water fall pictures coming within a week.

6 comments:

  1. hey barry, new job sounds great.... age/grade levels sounds confusing. looking forward to seeing pics of your adventures around there. i'm getting a box ready. will go out in the next week or two. waiting for unc. bill~he wants to add something to the box. we think about you every day, love you!! Hope to see you w/in the year. would be fun to show up on your door step :) haha SURPRISE :)

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  2. Just go to Banfora, then catch a bush taxi to Siniena for 300cfa (50cents) and ask for the white person, youll find me. But seriously, its really easy to stay in Banfora 30$ a night

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  3. Cool... we're looking up flights, haha. "Ask for the white guy".. hilarious. Man, I bet if I step off the plane/bus/taxi/whatever, they will say "you must be looking for the white guy"... *News from here: Rangers are about to make it to the American League playoffs; we've got tickets to game one of the Championship (if them win the Division)...; we went to the TX State Fair today... Lots of Fun!! Yay. As of today, everyone is healthy and happy. Weather is starting to get cooler/milder... Do you get much "Fall" weather? Do you need anything for your classroom/students? Have fun!

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  4. Rangers blew it, didn't make it to the Series. :( Started dive classes... any good places to dive near you?

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  5. Dive, as in water? No not much of that here. Maybe sand diving, or mango diving, there are alot of mangos here. The hotel has a great pool tho.

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