Day 4 at the Academy...

So I had my first day leading my discussion group with students at the Academy today. I got there early again since that’s the only time I can get a ride in and no one seems to think I can master the metro/ bus system by myself, regardless of the fact that I’ve lived in a couple cities now. I pretty much sat around and read one of my TOEFL books. At one point one of the fifth-year students blind-sided me and made me tutor him one-on-one for about forty minutes which was a bit of an awkward encounter since I had no clue what he wanted, and no preparation. He also kept asking me if I could help him every day and he didn’t seem to get that I have other commitments as well. I realize I’m just going to have to continue to put my foot down and say no to people.

At one point I was sitting in the department room completely by myself and this random man in a suit walks in. He starts speaking in Azerbaijani so I just respond in Russian saying “I don’t understand.” Eventually I explain to him that I’m teaching English at the Academy and he starts asking me a bunch of questions and sits down and has a 20-minute conversation with me. I was actually able to function and speak with him and understood most of what he said. It’s really strange to me how I can understand some people in Russian a lot better than others, and I’m not really sure what defines it. He definitely wasn’t a native Russian (since he was telling me I should learn Azerbaijani because it’s the national language) but I could communicate with him pretty well. With other people though I can barely understand what they’re saying when they speak Russian and they’ll be speaking about similar things that I did with this man. It’s very strange. Anyways, I still have no clue who this man was. He could have been someone important for all I know.

I had my class at 2:00 pm and the chair of the department was absent for the day so around 1:55 I was starting to freak out wondering what I was supposed to do, since there really wasn’t anyone in the main room coming to my aid. Sure enough one of the women whisks in and tells me “it’s time” and takes me to another room where I see 8 very boisterous guys in uniform. I chit-chat a little with two of the other English teachers who are in charge of these guys and then they leave and I had about a split second to regain my thoughts as to what I was doing. They quieted down when I told them to, and then started asking me about a hundred questions.

Since I’m really just leading a discussion club it’s pretty informal and the point is for them to just speak English. I had them go around and introduce themselves to me so I could get a handle on how comfortable they are with English and then I sat down amongst them and took all of their questions in turn. Since they’re fifth-year students their language abilities are all pretty good and they’re all comfortable with one another, which is good. Some of them are definitely more comfortable speaking English than the others, and there’s one guy who essentially speaks for the class. He did it in a good way, and he would frequently tell them to quiet down when I wanted to say something. Some of the guys were a little more shy, and I could tell they wanted to speak they were just nervous so they would only answer when I looked directly at them. They’re all my age, and started laughing when I said I was 22. I think there was a bet if I was married or not because one of them finally got the guts up to ask me and then when I answered “no” there was a lot of noise, and Azerbaijani.

We basically just talked about a variety of subjects, whatever they felt like. It was clear that some of them wanted to talk about more serious things (what Americans think of Russia and the former Soviet Union) and others wanted to talk about more 22-year-old topics (American girls… ha ha.) It was interesting to hear what some of them said and they were insistent that they help show me around the city and get my phone number. Once one of them asked for my number they literally all whipped out their phones and asked if they could take a picture with me. It was really weird, being ogled at like a zoo animal, and I had to remind them that I would be there the whole year, so we would have plenty of opportunities to chat. They apologized later for asking so many questions and they straight up admitted that they were just really intrigued by an American and had never really heard of an American coming to their part of the world.

We decided on a topic for next week- films, despite the strongest student’s insistence that they talk about aeronautical terms. I have another small group on Monday that will be the same level and I’m sure they will be quite similar. I had a whole lesson planned for today and once I walked through the door it was evident that none of it was really going to work so I just went with whatever happened. Now I know what to expect, and my biggest fear –that no one would talk- is obviously something I don’t have to worry about. Controlling them might be a little difficult considering they’re a bit rowdy and continually joked around in Azerbaijani and smacked each other with books, but they might have just been showing off. I think it will get easier with time. I’m just going to continue to prepare some ideas of what to do but I think the students will generally just ask the questions themselves and supply most of the talking. My only trouble will be to get the shyer students talking but I told this to one of the other women in the department and she told me they would be more talkative next week.

All in all… not too shabby! Now I just have to coordinate with the museum and start my next adventure in teaching.

Also random side note: I’ve been asked not once, but twice in the past twenty-four hours how to become a citizen of the U.S. and how to obtain a green card. I’ve stumbled through some vague explanation but clearly I should brush up on this.