So, my first class teaching German was this evening. Two hours of sweating and blushing and forgetting things. And laughing. My students? Eight guys. Seriously... eight guys. Eight not-so-much-older-than-me guys. So, half of me felt more comfy because I could kid around with them. But half of me felt giddy and weird because shouldn't the teacher be a figure of authority? So, I tried to be both. We had fun playing pictionary, they were learning "city" and "country" and "which country, which city?", so they had to draw a city landmark and the others would guess. Or the outline of a country. But then we had gone through the first chapter and I sorta didn't have anything else to teach them. I'll go over it all next week of course. I doubt a few of them will remember all of it. There are a couple who couldn't quite latch onto every word, but I know they'll practice. It's part of their job to learn the language. They kinda have to in order to excel in this company. VW. Makes sense, right?
Anyway, So, we probably won't get through all of chapter two, but at the end of the class one of them said "who wants to prder pizza?" (because they're all staying late working - engineers...) and he invites me too. hell yes! I'm starving. and who wouldn't want to see the inside of a research lab for cars like VW's. Granted, it's mostly messy work stations, full of electrical parts, but it's kinda cool. Everything is so nice and IKEA. The glasses, the coffee mugs, the tables and chairs. They have fridges and things to eat and drink all the time. But then again, these are salary jobs and they work non-stop sometimes. Right now, they're working on a big project, a show, that happens next week. They have to present their projects (like fiddled-with, loaded GPS systems) to the bigwigs of VW of America next week and then in November, some of them (only one from my class) will travel to Germany and present it to the German bigwigs. So, it's kinda cool to see what could be in a VW in like two or three years from now. At least, I'm assuming that's the timeline.
But they're all so nice and friendly and it felt good to teach again. I haven't taught German in a long time. But it was so embarassing... I was using the whiteboard so much and not using the eraser all the time and my hands were black! I tried washing them and it wouldn't all come off. Then, I'd scratch my head or something and it'd be black. God, I was red after that. Oh well. they're engineers, but cute ones too. One of them is super cute, from South Africa, Capetown. So, he speaks Afrikaans and can sorta understand German. But I digress....
It was fun. And I can't wait to do it next week. I really like teaching German to beginners. Cheryl should trust me more often. I just hope I can guide them to a level they're happy with, so that I can pass them off to a native speaker. Then they'll really improve. Not that I'm a bad teacher, but it's better for them to have a native speaker. At least that's what I think.
Ok, I'm still waiting for pizza to eat... still hungry.