Creativness

Things in Slovakia continue to be going well. This past weekend a former teacher from EGJT, my school, wanted to take myself and the other two lecturers on a hike. Jenny was really sick with a cold, so she did not go on the hike. Carol and I went and were excited to see where we would be going. We took a short bus ride to a town called Kvačany. We hiked in a valley on a trail for about an hour and twenty minutes and visited two old mills and got to see part of a path that is taken when a person does the whole hike. The whole hike involves going up one valley and down another valley, it is said to take about 6 hours. I plan to do this hike sometime, but am not sure of when yet. Plans will be in the making.

After the hike back the three of us stopped at a microbrewery to have something to eat and for our guide to meet with her new boss. Tereza is teaching English through a private business now. We all had a very good time, a little too much fun because we missed our bus to get back to Mikuláš. Thankfully Pat'ka, our trusty VP was able to send her husband to come and get us.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=161502&l=a0184&id=682430592
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=161510&l=9beb9&id=682430592

People may be wondering what is happening at the school I am teaching at. We have had classes for about a month now. Because of this things are starting to pick up in the classes with giving students projects and writing assignments. My students are very creative. For my 2nd years we went over "Little Red Riding Hood" and I asked them to rewrite the story as a news story. There have been a couple students who did theirs as gossip, a couple wrote the story as a crime report and others as an article. Some even changed the characters from a woodsman to a police officer for example. I have enjoyed reading the different perspectives and also enjoyed the words that some of the students come up with.

My 3rd years have been going over inventions, so they had a small group project to research an invention and tell about the inventor, what the invention does, the history and process. I now have a model toilet made out of paper sitting on my desk at school because one group decided to research the flushing toilet.

I haven't been able to do any real projects with my 1st years or Kvinta yet, but I can tell they will also be creative.

Starting tomorrow I will also be teaching in the basic school connected to the gymnasium. My class will be made up of 14 students from four different classes. They're ages will range from 11-14, so are in the upper section of the basic school. It should be interesting with the various English levels. I think it will go well, I'll see tomorrow what the students are like.