Salaam!
So, we have been teaching the last two days, and I think made some great progress. In the mornings, I teach typing, then Dave teaches resume building/career counseling to the older guys. Then, in the afternoon, we teach two groups of English classes to boys ages 4-18 or so.
In the typing course, they are quick learners and usually follow instructions pretty well. No one has taught them how to type without looking at the keyboard to develop the muscle memory. And many of these guys will be working in offices in the city, so computer skills are vital. I've been channeling the spirit of my typing teacher, Mrs. Pate, from high school. Calling out letters, combinations of letters, and soon, words and sentences.
In Afghanistan, it is a pretty common theme to lack organization and structure. They are extremely teachable, but do not have the long-term plans to achieve their goals. So, Dave began teaching a career course today that helped the older students identify their career goals, think about what is needed to achieve them, and get them thinking about specific steps they can take to achieve these. The next few days will be spent nailing down the specifics for each student and building the resume and creating a step-by-step path for them to follow. Today was very informative. We even had a couple of future journalists in our class and a couple of future pilots which made Dave and me happy.
In the English classes, the current teachers have been teaching loads and loads of grammar, which apparently, Afghans love. But, on our first day, like the other classes, we wanted to gauge exactly where the students were. They knew about demonstrative and subjective pronouns, but couldn't spell or pronounce words like 'grapes' correctly. So, we figured as native English speakers, the thing we brought to the table was the ability to pronounce words. It is very difficult for a non-native speaker to teach a language besides his own. So, we have been working on phonics and vocabulary. 'Grapes' for some reason keeps coming up in our flash cards. It's funny to hear it pronounced 'gereps'. There are quite a few combinations of sounds that are foreign to them. For me, it was the Ghein and Ghaf in Farsi that I still haven't mastered. For them, it is 'TH' because there is no TH sound in Dari or Pashto. We heard all sorts of attempts from 'Ze' to 'Te' to 'Se' to 'De' to whatever. "This and That" became a fun phrase for all of us, even the translators.
My favorite thing about the students here is their eagerness to learn. Our biggest problem is getting them to not answer a question when it isn't their turn. And for a teacher, that's a nice problem to have. For all of the teachers out there, you would love teaching here. If you feel called at all to teach somewhere besides the states, especially the women teachers, come over here for a week or two and see how attentive and excited these kids are. You won't want to leave.
We also end up functioning on what we call "Afghan time" which can be a window of a couple of hours or more. The school is pretty rigid about when a class starts, but everything else is a game of patience. For me, it's quite natural. The advice is always have a good book near you, because you will find yourself with a little extra time between appointments. It's also very difficult to judge how long it will take to travel. There are many more variables here than there are in the states, so everyone has to be a little more flexible.
We have also begun building some more good friendships with the translators and teachers. It's great connecting to the people here. We've had a lot of fun working together and talking over lunch about our families and our future. And, I should have quite a few pictures to share later on.
Well, sorry to be so long-winded. I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend. I'll be back home on Saturday. I would love an extra week to teach. But, I'll be back here in Kabul again soon. Khoda Hafez!
