On September 6th, I had my first day of teaching. Since then I have actually only taught 5 days, due to illness and having to go down to Tirana for a day. I will try and give you the idea of what a typical day is like so far.
I get to school a bit before 8am. I enter the school and talk with the teachers while we wait for the 8am bell to ring allowing the students, who are waiting outside in the courtyard in front of the school, to come in and go to their classroom. Here in Albania the students stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers move from room to room each period. After the students get to their classroom, Valbona, my Albanian counterpart, and I head to our first class of the day. We enter the classroom, which is about 5 degrees warmer than in the hallway due to all the students and the direct sunlight coming in from the windows. We do not turn on the lights in the classroom or anywhere in the school for that matter and just use the natural light from the windows. The room is very bare. The walls are painted white on the top and green on the bottom, there might be a couple posters on the walls and there is a blackboard at the front of the class. Sometimes it is a regular slate blackboard as the ones we are used to in the States, but other times it is just a black rectangle that is painted on the concrete wall. There are three rows of desks in front of us, where there are between 25-40 students facing us. There are two to three students to a desk.
Valbona starts by taking attendance and then reviews the homework, while I stand in the front or head to the back of the class to give some support in keeping the class in order. We then begin teaching the lessons. Valbona and I usually split up the lesson, where I do the reading and she write on the board or vise versa. She always does the grammar lesson, which is fine by me. I have to read very slowly, so the students can understand me. Most of the students have ony heard British English, as that is the kind of English that is taught in Albania and throughout most of Europe. Few of students have heard someone with an American accent speak. This difference in English has caused a few complications, such as when I write on the board the words that they don’t understand from the readings, since I spell things the American way. For example I spelt “realized” on the board and a student was really confused and asked Valbona why I spelled it with a “z.” They had learned to spell it, “realised.” This has caused some difficulties, but It is good for the students. Despite the fact that when I teach, we don’t get through everything, since I have to go so slow, Valbona is happy that I can provide the students with the opportunity to listen to a native speaker. When the bell rings to signal the end of class we leave and head to our next class.
There are 6 class periods in the day, with a 40 minute break after 3rd period. Valbona and I usually teach 5 periods in the day and during our off period we go and have a coffee. The day goes from 8am to 1:15pm.
In the afternoons, I have been planning my own lessons or I have relaxing. Valbona goes and teaches at the private English language school in town. She is very busy giving courses, which accounts for the great English I hear from the students who live in the town proper of Fushe-Arrez. She is a great teacher, which makes my job a bit easier.
