Hello all,
I’m sorry that it’s taken so long for me to send one of these things out. We’ve only just re-established an internet connection on a computer for browsing the internet – so I couldn’t really help it.
Well, what have I been doing for the past 6 weeks, the answer is a lot! I’ll try to give you as fuller picture as possible in what limited space I have.
After arriving, I was given a day or so to settle in and then onto planning the lessons and preparing for term to start. Having no teacher training, this was quite hard but in the 5 weeks since term began, this has been much easier. I have a better idea of the capability of my class and the level of English that it needs to be presented at.
There are 15 in my class, 3 of which have special educational needs of varying degrees and 1 (a new girl to the school) with a behavioural disorder (although as she’s new, it’s not officially recognised yet). They are a nice class and are very friendly. Most of the time they work well but on boring days (i.e. Tuesdays: double English, double maths, double Arabic and science) and Friday afternoons they can be quite awful! I teach for about 22 hours a week, with free periods when they have Arabic, French and music.
Each week I take a chapel for grades 1-6. I enjoy this very much and so do the children, there are great opportunities. The chapels each day have a gospel message, and the purpose of the chapels for these younger children is mainly to prepare the ground for when they are older and can understand things better. I also teach a Bible lesson weekly to my class where we can look at events from the Bible in more detail and learn important things from them.
Life here in the mountain village is great. We have a 180° view from the school of rugged mountains, valleys, cedar & pine woods and other villages. If you climb to the top of the school roof, the view continues all around. The air is clean and the only drawbacks are that it’s cold now & getting colder and that some commodities are difficult to buy here.
The rest of the staff here are nice too. There is a bunch of us foreigners living at the school and we all get on well together. The Lebanese staff are friendly too but because of the language barrier it’s difficult to become good friends with them quickly. I’m starting some Arabic lessons tomorrow from someone in the village. I’ve picked up some basic words (yes, no, sit, close books…) which I use in class to the huge amusement of my pupils. I can read Arabic numbers and recognise the Arabic letter for the ‘a’ sound (as in cat). I doubt I’ll be fluent by the time I come home!
Yesterday, we (the foreign staff) went to visit Walid Jumblatt. You’ve probably never heard him but if you look him up you’ll find lots about him. He played a large role in Lebanese history during the war period and is currently a very powerful man in the country. His palace is amazing and we were very honoured to be allowed a visit in light of recent happenings at the UN. He is a good friend of the school this is a good opportunity for him to witness how we live and work.
Anyway, I’m enjoying working here, and look forward to hearing from you about how things are going where you are.
Pete_K.
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