My Class :)

Hi all! Here is the long awaited post about my class in Turkey! (**Again, in order of most recent day first!) Click here for more pictures!

Tuesday (06/04)
     Tuesday was not too much different than the day before. I met up with the other volunteers about noon and we hung out around the city until our classes began. We went shopping and I got some cool Turkish pants! Just wait til you see them, haha. One of them I love and the other I'm not too crazy about but all the cool people wear them here so I had to get some and see what all the hype was about! Ha. I told my students that I went shopping and that I would surprise them on Wednesday with my new style. They are pretty excited about it. Also, here are two of my students in my classroom:

     There were only 11 students this day. Several were absent and 2 new ones joined. I feel like I have a better mix now so I hope it stays like it was on this day because class went a lot smoother than the day before. Then again, I used the board a lot more and wrote things out. I think that helped them a ton because they have a hard time understanding me speaking sometimes. 
     Oh my goodness! My skirt ripped before class! I was trying to open windows before class and I was stepping up on desks and I guess I stretched too far at one point and the slit in my skirt was all the sudden 4 inches longer. It was fine though. I think. 
     My host dad picked up Nisa and I and some of the other neighbor kids from school. I always really impressed with how good his English is! He hasn't studied it that much but I can communicate with him just fine. 
     I can't really think of much else right now but this'll do :)

Monday (06/03)
     Monday morning I got to eat breakfast with my host mom alone! It was funny because she doesn't speak any English besides key phrases and things like hello, good morning, welcome, and breakfast. We laughed a ton and breakfast was SO good! A typical Turkish breakfast would be: cucumber, tomato, sauteed peppers, eggs, (pita) bread with jams and Nutella, cheese, and tea, of course! I will take a picture soon because it is so yummy and fresh! I also got to meet some of the neighbors this morning. They came over and had Turkish coffee. None of them but one spoke English but I sometimes could figure out what they were talking about. At one point they asked me if I missed my family and I said not so much, but then I said that all of them were my family. Yeah, I got major brownie points for that one! My host mom was beaming and blew me a bunch of kisses, haha. 
     Later Serdar (the in-country coordinator for LE) came and picked me up to go meet the other volunteers. We visited Adiyaman's museum and a place called "the Castle." It was basically a really high spot to view the city--so pretty. Then we went to an elementary school (not our school) to visit one of the host parent's 2nd grade class. They asked us some questions about Americans and we showed them how to play Red Rover, since a lot of American school kids play this game. The kids showed us one of their games too. It was kind of like duck, duck, goose but they used a tissue to place on someone's head when they were chosen as "goose." Afterwards they asked to see our flag, so we drew it for them! We also sang the national anthem for them. In return, they did the same for us. It was adorable! Below is Alex drawing the flag.

    
     Then it was time for recess. I'm not entirely sure which kid started this, but all of a sudden every single child was bringing each of us a piece of paper and a pen and asking for our signatures. We were famous! Many of them would hand it to us while asking, "Facebook?" I always said yes, but then only put my first name... "whoops." After a while they began asking us to sign their arms! My friend Mehmet also studies Russian so we started signing things in the cyrillic alphabet just for fun. None of them knew the difference, ha. Here is Molly getting swamped with kids asking for our autographs:

     
     Our classes started at 5:30 PM. This week the students are with us for 3 hours a day (1.5 hours of play time and 1.5 hours of class). Next week we will have them from 9:00 AM- 1:00PM (2 hours of recess and 2 hours of class). So I finally got to meet my class! My class roll has 16 students on it but only 12 came on this day. They are 15-17 years old. We basically just played a bunch of get to know you games on this day. We played the name game where you pick an adjective that describes you but that also begins with the same letter as your name. Ice breakers are actually the worst but so necessary. Everyone moaned and groaned but they were laughing by the end of it! One of the other games we played was the one where you write questions on a beach ball and pass it around and whichever question your right thumb lands on, you have to answer it. That was fun because it helped me get to know the students more, however, all of their favorite actors/actresses, singers, movies and such were Turkish people/movies I had never heard of! Another fun game we played was the one where you write famous people on sticky notes and put them on students' backs. Then they must ask their classmates yes or no questions until they figure out who their famous person is.
     We also made our class rules. I asked them what they thought the rules should be and we went from there. Also, I should mention how lucky I am to have students that can communicate on this level. Some of the other volunteers have 3rd grade classes that are very very limited as to what they actually understand. Anyway, the next day Adele was joking with the other volunteers about how one of my class rules was "No racism." That's what one of the students wanted! I thought it was odd since I'm the only one different than them, but that's cool--good for me I guess.