Follow the Leader

What an interesting day.  In Project Management we had to do a leadership practical class which involved me and the German running around the school and surrounding town trying to convince people to let us take pictures of them with silly faces.  This was supposed to demonstrate our ability to lead a team and convince others to follow us.  We received points based on the types of people we photographed: students-3, staff-4, strangers-6 and I was, of course, determined to beat the German.  Now I will admit to having a leg-up on him with my understanding of Italian language, but let's not discount my disarming smile and undeniable charm.  Oh, and feminine wiles.  Doesn't it mean you're a good leader if you can convince 3 guys at a bar who just got out of a funeral to take silly pictures?  Ok, yeah, kind of wrong.  But let's just say the German started gloating too soon with his 108 points, because mamma came back with 178.  This was added in some capacity to my midterm grade, meaning this plus the video presentation got the... what was it again?  Oh yeah, the "A."

Lovely obliging ladies from the administration office

To top things off, this evening I had my didactic debut in an English Conversation lesson.  Me, a teacher.  Ha!  In the interview I made it clear I've never taught any subject before in my life, but the community center called me back last week and offered me the position.  It's one class a week, Tuesday evenings, for adults that want to practice their English in an informal setting.  I realized this weekend I have absolutely no idea how to teach English - I was terrified they were going to ask me about past conditional tenses or indirect pronouns.  Eek!  My current method for helping the foreign roommates is to tell them "this sounds good" and "this doesn't" but I can't explain why, it just is.  Luckily, I had the interwebs to guide me through How to Teach an ESL Conversation Class.

graphic representation of languages in my head.

I watched some podcasts this weekend with tips on how to command a classroom's attention and present a lesson plan.  Today I spent about an hour creating a powerpoint of fun images and questions for the class but I still couldn't wrap my head around being a teacher.  It's almost scary how much freedom is involved in this position, I was told I could talk about whatever I want as long as I am able to judge their level of comprehension/ability.  There were 9 students total and most of them were between 30 and 50 so I was afraid they wouldn't take me seriously with this precious baby face of mine.  Well, I told myself to feign confidence (as I often do when speaking Italian), as this usually works in getting people to listen to you and follow orders.  Well I think it worked.  I started out with a joke in Italian (thank goodness I'm amusing in 2 languages) and it went over rather well.  

I introduced myself and did some games and activities to get them acquainted with each other.  I had them laughing about American culture and British accents that are difficult to understand.  I had them try to guess the capital of Texas and my responses were: Miami, Santa Fe, Houston and Dallas :)  At a certain point I told them to write a few sentences down and a matter of moments later I saw all their little pens writing intently and I thought - wow, these people are actually doing whatever I say, incredible!  Before I knew it 1.5 hours was up and I'd successfully facilitated a course in English Conversation.  Whew!

My favorite part of the lesson was explaining to them the Hook 'Em Horns hand signal used at my University in comparison with that same gesture's significance in their culture -- a mildly offensive sign that your significant other is doing you wrong.  Ahhh, cultural nuances.  Now I just have to worry about what the heck I can talk about for 28 more lessons.  Suggestions welcome.