college students

I haven't written much about the college class I'm teaching. It's.... hm. I wouldn't say it's going well, I wouldn't say it's going poorly, it's just.... going. Going on, and on.

My former Tower of Babel has dwindled to 6 students. Maybe 5 now, as I haven't seen one all this week. I'd describe them as follows, in no particular order of who I like the best:

1. speaks almost fluently, would prob'ly teach the class better than I do, and thus is completely bored in class, does no work
2. could speak medium-well-to-quite-well, but doesn't because too shy, great at grammar and repetition exercises
3. speaks medium well (good vocab, iffy grammar), but enthusiastic, wants to know everything, always asking why
4. seems to somehow speak quite well about some topics, but simply refuses to talk about others... don't know why
5. speaks poorly and never wants to, says everything in Hungarian instead
6. speaks medium well, I think... don't really know because also shy

Hm, writing the list actually made a couple things clear... namely, that many of them just don't want to speak, for on reason or another. That, along with the late hour, the fact that they'd rather be sleeping, I'd rather be sleeping, we have a crap textbook, and I don't plan well enough... well, let's say things are not stellar.

Actually, it's only been in this week (I've been teaching them since September) that I felt like I really related to them at all. It's funny, when I was doing my napló today (which, ahem, I should have been doing every day, but...) I realized that we've had almost 30 lessons together... that's the same amount of time I would spend with a high school class over an entire year.

Completely out of the blue, one of the students asked me today, "Didn't you take a Hungarian exam recently?" This fact I had not shared with them. It led to a flurry of questions and a breakdown of my resolve to speak only English. The girl later told me she had heard it from friends of hers who go to my high school Varga. Thus confirming my theory that in Szolnok, EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYONE.

minutes, sick, card, Babel

- The Hungarian minutes are spreading! Spreading like a cold in a kindergarten, spreading like the Tisza will creep up to my doorstep this spring, spreading like a cold morning fog that sends it's chilly slimy fog-fingers up your pant legs and down the back of your jacket... The other half of the 13.A is now firmly enchanted with the idea; possibly they're taking it even more seriously than the first group (they actually stayed past the bell to harass me). And in a third class, the 12.A, I heard a couple of hopeful calls for "Hungarian minutes?" but I managed to glare the callers into silence. I think.

- I'm sick. It's just a cold, but the Hungarian side of me enjoys whining about it for sympathy, using it as an excuse not to do anything more than I have to, and drinking lots of tea. Well, drinking lots of coffee, at least.... it's all the same, right?? Anyway, I used being sick as a reason why we had to turn on our heat, so TinyLittleFlat is a bit more cozy now.

- I finally have my residence card. Yay to be working here legally! Next project, permanent settlement card.

- I'm teaching a tower of Babel. My new class at the Szolnok College is made up of a handful of Hungarians (including Serb-Hungarian, Slovak-Hungarian, Japanese-Hungarian), a handful of Chinese students, and two random Spanish. They range from semi-fluent to barely-able-to-count. Unfortunately, the semi-fluents are dropping out like flies or finding higher-level courses, and the beginners are sulky and whiny. It's going to be a fun semester...

How I got into college...

So starting tonight, I’ll be teaching at the Szolnoki Fõiskola (Szolnok College). It seems like it’ll be a good job - teaching 12 pre-intermediate students twice a week, 90 minutes each lesson. And for this endeavor, 3 hours of extra work a week, I’ll be making 60% of what I make at my full time job.

I have to share the way I got the job, because it was very typical of how things work in Hungary: at my part time job at Kassai Primary, the other American teacher is a guy named Oscar. His main job is at the Waldorf School in Szolnok (I think). Another teacher there is a German (possibly French? Dutch???) guy named Stefan, who has some as-yet-undiscovered-by-me connection to the college. So Stefan recruited Oscar to teach there, Oscar took the advanced group and passed the pre-int on to me, et viola, here I am about to embark on another teaching adventure.