Dreams of Luxury

This morning our class had its first computer lab of 2015. The idea was that they should plan a 'dream holiday' on a hotel budget of US$5,000. It was up to them to find a hotel and to calculate how many nights they could stay in it. The two websites they had to use were www.booking.com and www.xe.com to convert currency.

It was new territory for me and for them. I may have given really poor instructions but they paid no attention to them, engrossed as they were in using the computer. I ended up having to explain everything to them individually. Almost all of them chose hotels in Indonesia and managed to find some sweet deals (US$45 per night for nice looking hotels), but one guy looked further afield and selected what must be one the most expensive hotels in Venice at 775 euros per night.

About 30% of the class did not know how to calculate the number of nights they could stay. My mathematical abilities are incredibly crappy, but I knew enough to teach them something they were genuinely glad to learn. I understood why I am encouraged to include simple math functions in my classes -- some students have never learned this stuff before.

A Remarkable Animal

Today's theme was 'hotels', which was a great opportunity to show a Youtube clip from the old BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers. The clip starts with Manuel, the Spanish waiter and porter, cleaning the desk at reception practising his English. "Hello! Helloooo! I speak English. I learned it from a booook." As Manuel ducks under a desk, the Major (one of the hotel elderly guests) wanders into the foyer and hears the words, "Helloo!" The Major looks at the reception desk and sees a giant moose head mounted on a board. The moose seems to say, "I speak English, I learned it from a book," which astonishes the Major so much that he starts stammering and peers at the moose very closely.

The students were highly amused.

It was another day of celebration as the troops said farewell to Major Gabby, of the Australian Army, who has coordinated the English-Language Learning program. We listened to the officers and students deliver speeches of gratitude. They presented her with a traditional Timorese flax basket and a silk Thais (scarf) in the colors of the Timor Leste flag. In turn, she presented the officers with a silver cake-cutter for graduations and other special occasions (up till now they've been using plastic knives). No one was being overtly sentimental or effusive--it was very low-key--but somehow that made it more affecting. At least I was affected (or maybe it was just the heat!).

Karen, who is taking Gabby's position, was also officially presented to and welcomed by the students.

All the while the speeches were going on, there was a large white table in the center of the crowd that was festooned with flowers and doughnuts.

Finally, the Commanding Officer motioned to the table and said, "And now, let us..."

The soldier beside me, one of my wise-cracking students, murmured, "Attack and destroy!"

My Day with Xa

Perks of teaching the Timor Leste army officer corps: you get your hand shook (with a little extra squeeze, if my girlish heart not deceive me) by world-famous guerilla veteran Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. He may be named after a mere ‘50s revival band but he had the bugles blasting and the sweat rolling from everyone on the base as we waited for the royal presence. At 2pm, the very hottest point of a very hot and humid day – after everyone had busied themselves wrestling the local snakes and cleaning up the tropical foliage – he appeared. After a grand entrance, he dawdled around the school in a swarm of photographers and video-production crews (apparently they follow him around all day). He came into the teachers’ room, shook our hands, then immediately fixated on a squeeze toy shaped like a pig, which he picked up and squoze repeatedly, cracking himself up. All the military personnel maintained decorum like Margaret Dumont in a Marx Brothers film. * Next, he went around the classrooms. * All my students were sitting uncharacteristically upright in dress uniform, completely silent when Xa (I call him Xa now that we’ve shaken hands) entered the class. My students were so respectful and overawed that they were completely useless, which was fine because all he wanted were straight men to lob his cracks out of the park. He looked at a drawing I’d done on the white board featuring two misshapen humanoids and asked the class “Which one is Katherine?” Then he picked up my lesson plan and pretended to study it in detail. After that, he approached one of the more solemn students and asked how long he’d been in the course. Another student, an inveterate blurter, cried out, “Two years!” * Xa looked the blurter up and down and said, “I wasn’t talking to you!” He wandered over to another student and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “What do you think, is Katherine a good teacher?” Alfred said, “Yes!” Xa wanders up to me and says, “They are afraid of you! I should make you go outside so they tell me the truth!” “Yes, that’s why I stayed!” I wittily replied. “If anyone gives you any trouble, send me a letter!” he said, eyeing everyone. Then he and the entourage left. For about five minutes, my students were very flustered, rifling through their papers, looking at their nails or just looking straight ahead in a daze.

Prep Day

The workload is quite heavy where I work. Every day there are four classes of 90 minutes each. The course material (Speak Out) accounts for about 40% of this time, so that leaves an awful lot of time to fill in a day. It's necessary to find supplementary material that will interest, inform and benefit my students. Luckily, I have a co-teacher and he covers one or two days a week. The days he teaches I can devote to preparation. Today (only a day after my first class) was one of these preparation days. After spending six hours planning everything for the next week, I feel like it's Friday already and I could sleep for two days. I just got a knock at the door. My colleague informs me that tomorrow will be an unusual day. Yesterday was the celebration of the Navy's anniversary, which was attended by the Prime Minister of Timor Leste. As it turns out, he may be visiting my school tomorrow, so I should "not dress in rags" and be prepared to lose a class or two as the soldiers prepare to welcome Prime Minister Xanana Guzmão. Here he is:

Around the World in 90 Minutes

The first day of teaching 8 of my 11 elementary students is over and it was not as scary as I anticipated. It's always a bit difficult (not to say terrifying) planning lessons without knowing exactly who you are planning for. The students are familiar with the classroom -- they've gone through a starter course so they know the rules and procedures quite well. They were not very excited but not overtly bored either. When I tried to engage them in a discussion about what they wanted out of their English lessons, they shrugged and said that their commander told them to come so they come. It proves they are good military men but perhaps not highly motivated learners. The topic of the day was 'countries and nationalities'. They all knew an impressive number of countries. One of the tasks had groups of four plan a trip around the world. They had to specify where they were going, what they would do there, how much it would cost and how long it would take. Group A: First they'd spend a week in Bali, then two years in Qatar studying the Koran, then two years in Israel to train with Mossad, then a month in Spain because one of the senior guys likes Messi and wants to do a photoshoot and have a conversation with him. Then they'd have a month in Portugal relaxing and visiting Nossa Senhora do Rosario da Fatima. And then they'd fly back to Timor Leste, via Singapore. It would cost $100M and take 8 years. Group B: This group would go to Bali for a week and visit Lake Toba. Then one of them (George) would fly off to Singapore to close a business deal (the others would keep relaxing in Sumatra). When George got back from his shady dealings, they'd go to Washington D.C. and Ronald would arrange a private meeting with Barack Obama, in which he'd arrange to have a big plane especially for Timor Leste. This would take $15M and take a month. Other Observations: They told me they want lots of speaking practice and information about topical countries, people and events. I noticed they had trouble differentiating between 'sh', 's' and '-tch' sounds. Air conditioning makes them shiver.

First Day Eve: Pre-teaching Jitters

Classes start tomorrow. It's been two weeks since my husband and I arrived in the country, and we've adjusted (somewhat) to the heat, humidity, mosquitoes and lack of usable ATMs. There are a lot of things that will take longer to learn. For example, what does 'slebor' mean (it's maybe the most popular graffito around here)? What is the lurid blue liquid sold in kiosks throughout town? What is a reasonable price for a taxi to the beach? For now, I'm preoccupied with tomorrow's task: meeting my 11 elementary-level students for the firs time. They're all male adults from diverse educational backgrounds. A couple have trained to be doctors, one spent most of his youth as a guerrilla in the jungle. Some speak Portuguese, some don't. Some speak Dili Tetun, others a different kind of Tetun. A couple are illiterate in their first languages. How is this going to play out? I'll get back to you tomorrow.