Teaching Day 2

We began the day as usual with the morning meeting and then moved on to breakfast. Today the weather is noticeably warmer, a nice change. During the first two class periods for class today we played a game called "Talking Cards." This involves drawing a card and then matching it to a question a student must answer or a description they must give. My students are not ready for free flowing conversation, so I will be putting my mind to activities that allow for structured English speaking.

During the third class hour we played Scrabble. This led to the discovery of some vocabulary words such as mug and dam. I tried to describe a dam and finally pulled out the dictionary to find the Polish word which turns out to be tama. Next week we plan to go a place where there is a large dam across a river and I told Student K, I'm going to say "To jest tama" when we get there.

I knew the students were going on a difficult hike during the afternoon so I had planned entirely table activities to help them save their energy. At the start of Class 3, Student D said, "I have one question. Can we walk to the store?" So that's what we did during the fourth hour. I tried to ask questions about products in the store to continue to push their English.

After lunch some of we volunteers went into Zakopane. My goal for this trip was to get my train ticket for my weekend trip to Katowice. That involved a 30 minute walk each way to the train station. It was a pleasure as there are so many things to see.

I walked on the opposite side than usual and noticed a monument.

This monument is dedicated to and has the names of many, many who fought first again Hitler and then the Communists between 1943 - 1950.


My goal was the same train station that is pictured during World War II,  covered with Nazi flags and symbols, in my blog entry about the Katyn exhibit in Minnesota. 

 I also noticed the padlock tradition is coming to Zakopane.

We came back to the hotel around 4:00 and I keyed in a journal another volunteer had written into the computer. We take turns bringing a thought for the day or writing a journal about the day's activities. I coordinate the production of the journal doing my best to anticipate what someone may write about and take photos that may match the writing.

About 5:30 several of us gathered on the patio for happy hour. This is such a nice group of volunteers and everyone has amazing stories to tell. Our supper had spaghetti and ice cream.  Good !

I added to it a Hungarian bread called kurtoszkalacz.

Present day Slovakia is just over the mountains and years ago that used to be Hungary. In Zakopane one can find some remains of Hungarian culture and this is one of them. I always buy this at least once to share with volunteers.

The evening activity was camp initiation. New campers do this. Each one is different. For this one they had to walk through basins of ice water and then crawl on their tummy under about six chairs. Then they had to dump flour on their head. This was followed by eating a spoonful of I know not what. I went to ask "Co to jest?" However, I could see that the four bowls head four different concoctions. The Polish counselor told me it was "mish-mash" and that certainly was a good word for it.

Another good day in Zakopane.