Work? What work?

I realized that I never mention my work on this blog, just about my travels, discoveries inside fruit and special events like holidays.

Well, I actually do work. I go to school 5 days a week and work with the local Macedonian teachers teaching English. This year I loathe my schedule because classes start at 7:30am everyday (except Mondays, which are at 9am). Ugh. There are three English teachers that I work with, following around and going to class with them. All the teachers in Macedonia use the same book, "Dream Team" and all the kids here learn British English (also, all the teachers have British accents, which was weird for me to get used to at first). During the lesson, from time to time I am able to teach part of the lesson, or add to it if I have personal experience. For example, yesterday the lesson was about London, so I shared a little bit about my being a tourist there in the past. One time last year there was a lesson about Australia and I brought in some Aboriginal music for the kids to listen to, which they loved. Sometimes I do the reading so kids can hear a native speaker. Sometimes the teachers are absent so I teach alone, which is, at times, nice because then I get to do my own stuff and make the lesson a bit more interesting. "Dream Team" is a fine book except the kids need more practice speaking English and learning grammar.

So I am at school about 25 hours a week in the classroom (which is a full teaching load in Macedonia) and then I have my afterschool English club. All the kids are welcome, but there are often just a small core group of about 8 girls who attend. We meet twice a week for an hour at a time and we play games, read books and sometimes listen to music, which gives them a chance to practice their English. I also have some crossword puzzles that the kids can also color, which are a real hit.

In addition, I just started up a Club GLOW at the local highschool. This is a club that is based directly from the girl's summer camp I worked at this summer. We just had our first meeting and we will meet once a week for an hour and learn about topics similar to camp like leadership, health, environmental issues, self esteem, etc. Think of it sort of like Girl Scouts. I never thought that I would enjoy working with highschool students, but I really love these girls, they are so much fun to work with.

Now if that wasn't enough, I also have lots of projects that I work on. I'm very involved with Peace Corps activities and I attend meetings often, and go to the PC office in Skopje about twice a month. The following are projects that I have worked on in the past or ones I'm working on now:

Member of VAC (Volunteer Action Committee), think Student Council
Head of the planning commitee for Field Day (last weekend, more on that later)
Coordinator for the National Essay Contest in English, including holding essay writing workshops at my school and the nearby highschool.
Member of TIP commitee (Human Trafficking, a big problem in Macedonia)
Working on getting the PC traveling photo exhibit to come to Kochani (next month)
Moderator of English Teaching Listserv for PCV's and Macedonian Teachers
Co-editor of "Pauza" the Macedonian PCV magazine
Writing supplemental curriculum (grammar focused) for "Dream Team" and having it available on the listserv (in the future will add it to the Resource room at the PC office)
Working on getting English books donated to my school.

In addition, I started attending the local Methodist church in town. It is very small, many people are surprised to learn that one exits here. The other interesting thing is that all of the members are Roma, there are no Macedonians that go. But just like Macedonians they are very friendly and welcoming. The second time I attended the minister asked me if I would teach the congregation English after the service. I was hestitant to agree (everyone heard the conversation), but I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

Lastly, I also hope to start a class to teach the teachers at my school English, as many have expressed a real desire to learn. So, if I can sort it out in my busy schedule that is also another secondary project I hope to start up this fall.

So, I guess I had more to say about work than I had thought!

Stay tuned for pics and info about the 2nd annual Field Day event that was last weekend.