Montag, Dienstag und Mittwoch

Today the second week began. And with the second week came the second English course. This week there are fewer students – only 3. There is Karin from last week and Claudia and Angelica. Jenny and Jannik aren’t cooking for us this week but there is still coffee and cake at 11h and we still have lunch together at 13h. I met my students at 9h30 this morning after registration and took them to the summer house. The summer house is good for teaching in – it’s light and bright and airy and is just generally more pleasant than upstairs. We worked through ‘there is’ and ‘there are’ and then progressed onto ‘there was’ and ‘there were’. We went for coffee at 11h and when we walked into the room (a different room from last week) there was no one there but there was hot tea and coffee and a plate of biscuits on the table – it was like the tea fairy had been! We drank and ate and then went back to the summer house for the second lesson. We got through more of what I’d planned than I’d expected which is good – it means we’ll cover lots this week. Tomorrow I’m planning on doing the present continuous and when to use it rather than the present simple which will then neatly lead into the present continuous in the future – ‘going to’ phrases. Heidi is leaving all the teaching to me this week which I’m really happy about because it means that I can plan the whole week and really progress with the students more than if they had two teachers. We’re thinking of doing a film afternoon one afternoon too. At 13h we went to eat. As it’s Restoration Week (where everyone gets together to do repairs to the Jesus Haus) then everyone involved in that is eating together so we’re eating with them. After lunch I went to find the post office. I located it by the ‘post office’ looking sign outside. However when I went in it looked to me anything but a post office – more of a mail order catalogue centre with a lady on a computer and lots of magazines. There were certainly no ‘post office’ like things – no counters or stamp machines. I was beginning to wonder whether I was even in the post office! When the lady said ‘Guten Tag’ to me I replied with ‘Guten Tag’ and then ‘Kein Deutsch’ I then read from my phrasebook – ‘funf Briefmarke bitte’. And it worked! Until she said the price – she had to show me the calculator! Ha! I went back to the Jesus Haus and wrote my postcards sticking on the stamps and then went to post them.

Since posting my postcards I have planned my lessons for tomorrow. The weather is cloudy and it looks like it might rain again (we had a heavy shower this morning). I want to know where the sun has gone. Renée came back today – she is Heidi’s flatmate and has been in Portugal for the past week at a family wedding (she isn’t Portuguese, she’s American). She was due back at Dresden Airport last night at 22h10 but her flight in Lisbon was delayed. She left her hotel room at 6h30 on Sunday morning and didn’t make it back to Herrnhut until 11h45 this morning – Monday!

On Tuesday I did the present continuous with my students as planned. In the afternoon I helped Heidi do her marking which was fun. She lent me a cassette of the history of the English language which I started to listen to in the evening after planning the lessons for the next day. On Wednesday I did the present perfect and past simple with my class. Something I intend to do more on tomorrow as they found it challenging. Today is Hannaloore's birthday - she is a student from the course last week and she is having a small gathering at her house tonight which I'm going to. Tomorrow afternoon we are doing a film afternoon. We're going to be watching 'My big Fat Greek Wedding' which is a comedy. I've never seen it so it should be good. Afterwards there will be coffee and cake!! It's the Thursday afternoon tradition here! And then Friday will be the last day of the second course...