First Day of School

Today was my first day of school. It was interesting. Up until now, I've always played the role of a student while in Germany. This time I am a teacher. It feels a little weird.

It was a little awkward at first because we got there really early and all the teachers were standing around talking and wishing each other good luck on the new school year. I tend to get overwhelmed in large groups of people where I'm expected to make small talk in English, so being forced to make small talk with people I don't know in my second language was well... overwhelming.  I just seem to function better in one-on-one or small group settings, but I know that's not always possible, so today I took as a learning experience. All the teachers were very nice though and were all very interested in talking with me.

I find how the teacher's room works here interesting. There are a bunch of table and chairs in the room and each teacher is assigned to a table and to a specific chair at that table. I was assigned to a table with student teachers and university students doing their practicums. This is very nice because they are all about my age.

Today I went to two eighth grade English classes. I was really impressed with how much they know. They are already at the point of using only English in the classroom. Eighth grade is the first year students get introduced to American English and American Culture. A lot of the students today said they had a hard time understanding me because they were used to hearing only British English. As the students were saying that couldn't understand my American English, in the back of my head I was thinking that my nasally Wisconsin accent probably doesn't help either.

Tomorrow I have off which is probably good because I feel like I might be getting a sinus infection and having tomorrow to sleep might help me fight it off!  On Wednesday I will go and see 10th and 11th grade English classes.

Overall it was a good day. I don't feel like there were very many surprises for me  because I've been a student at a German Gymnasium as well, but I'm sure there are many surprises lurking around corners that I'm not anticipating!