This past week had a lot of ups and downs. We are nearing the end of the first quarter and my counterpart said that it was time to give a test. He copied a standard test from the book and gave it to the students. Because we have 10th graders and this is their first year of high school, they have come in with a variety of English skill levels. These students come not only from the elementary schools (grades 1 - 9) in Kaçanik, but also from the surrounding villages. There are those who speak and understand no English at all and those that are fully conversational and understand a good deal of grammar as well.
For me, it was really hard giving out a test to students, when I knew they did not have the language background to pass it. When I gave a test in my classes in the U.S., it was important that I was testing on what I had taught and what students had the chance to master. If a majority of my students couldn't pass a test than I had failed, not the students. So needless to say, I went home feeling pretty bad on a number of occasions last week. We only have two days of school this week; and then we have a short and much needed break from school. We will finish up the testing before the break and when I come back, we will start fresh. I am looking forward to that. Yes, if you haven't guess, this was the bad part of the week.
The good part of the week was a teacher conference in Prizren. The conference is designed to start helping teachers change the way they teach in in their classrooms in Kosovo. There were a variety of organizations involved, but it was ran by the Peace Corps staff and two professors from Prishtina. It took place on the university campus in Prizren and we were there to help facilitate. The topic was competency based and project based learning. These English teachers had already attended a conference last spring and this was a follow-up conference which focused on project based learning. My school district in the in Middleton has use these two teaching strategies for a long time and I had training in both. I felt like I had a lot to add, especially when we were facilitating in small groups. My group was great and I really enjoyed the conference.
The Peace Corps volunteers that were at the event, were primarily TEFL. Scott works with community organizations and stopped by the conference on Sunday to help, but that is because he lives in Prizren. Some our TEFL had to leave early on Sunday, because of limited bus schedules and so he came to help facilitate. For me, it was so good to talk with other volunteers during our free time in the evenings. Alyanna and I got in Friday night and had dinner together. We both felt the same way about the testing process and it was so good to know that I was not alone.
On Saturday, a group of us hung out at destiLL in Prizren. This restaurant has a hippy, artsy vibe with great outdoor seating and it was really close to most of our hostels. It was a really chill evening. One of the volunteer's mother, Marilyn, was in Italy and took a side trip to visit her son. She showed up at distiLL as well. She had toured around Prizren during the day, while Andrew was helping with the conference. I enjoyed talking with Marilyn as she is a Rotarian and we had many things in common.
The teachers at the conference were from the Prizren municipality (and the surrounding villages) and I made new friends. Rozefa invited me to come back sometime so that she can show me some interesting hieroglyphs on the cliffs around her village. Cloe's counterpart was in my group and he was so interesting to work with on our projects. He has some really great ideas of things to do with his students.
The ugly is the medlar fruit. Some of it was ready to eat and I had them with my muesli this morning. When they are ready, they start to wrinkle and get squooshy. So when they are really ugly, that is when you eat them. The other ugly is that as it is getting colder and there are more wood burning heaters firing up and the air quality is not really that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment