Phase II day 5, third day of class.
My students constantly amaze me. They are SO smart and creative and sweet and funny and loving...I can't say enough good things about them! I have had a bit of difficulty because we have to do testing during the first 3 days, which involved short "oral exams"...the students get very nervous about test-taking, so I played it off like, "It's just an interview, it's no big deal, just a conversation between us." But it meant I had to be out of the room for a couple hours total, taking the students one at a time to the hall to do the interviews. I was also standing all morning...real teachers must not wear Chucks when they teach. I my feet were feeling it for sure!
My students are very self-starting. I have a few strong leaders, and a few with high English levels, and some of them have both. I know it's an English class, but I have been letting them use Portuguese to explain to each other, if repeating and writing on the board still aren't getting the message across.
For Friday, the "product" to show is a skit/dance/song/poem about your team. We had a brainstorming session using the whiteboard-I passed markers around, they loved it! We settled on a mash-up of Michael Jackson songs, some dancing and some singing where we will change the words to be about our team. One student isn't really into singing and dancing, so he is preparing a few facts about greyhounds to read. Basically, my team is the best! Another is mixing the music. They already had a team cheer prepared before I even got here, so we can go above and beyond!
At the end of every class, I hug all my students. They also try to give the little cheek kisses that are customary here, but I don't do it right yet...many of them are short too, so they miss! This leaves me with a bunch of little pecks on my neck. It's...adorable, with my Brazilian perspective, and gross/creepy with my American perspective. I'll try to kiss back tomorrow and see how it goes.
It was so hot that I felt beads of sweat roll down my leg, so I got back from school and just laid in the AC of my room. I had a Cliff bar for lunch because when you are that hot, food seems terrible. We were planning to go to a Sao Joao festival, it's a really big deal here, but it got rained out. There is a little gym on the top floor of the hotel. It doubles as a sauna-it's so hot in there, you sweat just from standing, let alone working out! I've found a nice little dumbbell routine for now. The dumbbells don't have numbers, so in my log it is by color which is funny.
I ate dinner in the hotel with Elena, the team coordinator. She is a super cool lady! I had a traditional regional dish- carne do sul arretada. It translates to "jerked meat from the sun". It reminded me of bisteck from Costa Rica. The steal was well done, but the way it was grilled, the outside was really flavorful. There was also fried yuca (maybe, some sort of starchy tuber), some beans mixed with onions and peppers, and of course rice. It was so GOOD.
My students have to give a performance tomorrow, on Day 4. I bet it will be awesome, because my students are!
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