Learning and Teaching New Things
In the past few weeks I have learned so much. Our training has consisted of a portion called “Practice Teaching”. This segment included me and my fellow trainees being put into teaching groups of four. In these teaching groups we came up with a three week unit and lessons for everyday that we would teach. We did what they call team-teaching, for example me and a counterpart. My group of four included Cameron, Ellie, Nadra and myself. We taught the level 1 students.
The level 1 students are the children who have no former english training. However, our class was awesome and the students loved us all. The students really liked our songs and our energy. For the first two weeks of practice teaching I would come to my cabin and nap everyday. Teaching/counterparts took so much from me... This was overall a good experience and I feel prepared for my job for the next two years.
…So I decided to do something different this blog... I'm including two of my journal entries “word for word”!
Journal Entry 8-1-2010
Today was a delightful day. The day started with me waking up and having buckwheat for breakfast. Buckwheat has become one of my favorite morning meals along with oatmeal, Kosh(cream of wheat). The buckwheat had raisins in it (mongolian mom) and I added cinnamon to it.
Yesterday I told the Korean minister at the local church that I would come to service today. Thus after breakfast I got ready by brushing my teeth and putting on my clothes. I planned to meet a fellow trainee Ashlie at the store so we could walk together to the church. However, In mongolia there is always spontaneity. As I was walking from my house Ashlie and another trainee Ben were right outside of my gate. Ben joined us as we went to the Mongolian worship service.
We arrived at the church at 11pm and worship had already began. The worship leader had her guitar and hands were raised. I was amazed! Because I am learning mongolian I recognized many words and phrases like “Jesus is my brother” and “I love Jesus”. I took me no time to jump right into the flow. The prayer time was also an awesome experience . The people would just go forth in prayer for 5min ad than finish the chorus of the song that they would be singing. The korean pastor whom preached did a good job. (How do I know I don't speak korean....LOL)Although, I could not Identify many of the words he spoke I knew the name “Jesus” and I heard that name a lot. There was another minister whom I met yesterday also, and he proceeded to translate the sermon for me and my fellow trainees. However, this meant that there were three languages going on at once and it confused the pastor. (Korean>Mongolian >English) The pastor was speaking Korean the translator next to him mongolian and the guy by us english. Honestly, IT was POWERFUL!
After service there was food and fellowship and they asked me to pray and bless the food. I prayed and gave Jesus his glory and there was a loud chorus of AMEN when I was finished. I felt like I was at Chayil. ( Peace and Blessings to my father and pastor Clifton N. Hurt)The rest of the day included mongolian dance practice, a meeting with a cool young mongolian banker guy and a peaceful 4hr hike with a fellow trainee Ben. Ben does not say much but every-time I go on a hike with him he makes sure Im OK. Ben is 23 year old scoutmaster standing at about 6ft 5inches, meaning I'm nearly running up the mountains to keep up with him.
… I just finished dinner which was a cabbage, onion, carrot and vegan meat soup along with a slice of bread. I added cinnamon to my bread. The bread my mongolian mom makes from scratch is so delightful. I now turn from my journaling to working on things for the week ahead. I will be solo teaching and doing a seminar with counterparts this friday in a different town. These have been good days!
Clifton A. Hurt (Happy B-Day DAD!)
In the past few weeks I have learned so much. Our training has consisted of a portion called “Practice Teaching”. This segment included me and my fellow trainees being put into teaching groups of four. In these teaching groups we came up with a three week unit and lessons for everyday that we would teach. We did what they call team-teaching, for example me and a counterpart. My group of four included Cameron, Ellie, Nadra and myself. We taught the level 1 students.
The level 1 students are the children who have no former english training. However, our class was awesome and the students loved us all. The students really liked our songs and our energy. For the first two weeks of practice teaching I would come to my cabin and nap everyday. Teaching/counterparts took so much from me... This was overall a good experience and I feel prepared for my job for the next two years.…So I decided to do something different this blog... I'm including two of my journal entries “word for word”!
Journal Entry 8-1-2010
Today was a delightful day. The day started with me waking up and having buckwheat for breakfast. Buckwheat has become one of my favorite morning meals along with oatmeal, Kosh(cream of wheat). The buckwheat had raisins in it (mongolian mom) and I added cinnamon to it.
Yesterday I told the Korean minister at the local church that I would come to service today. Thus after breakfast I got ready by brushing my teeth and putting on my clothes. I planned to meet a fellow trainee Ashlie at the store so we could walk together to the church. However, In mongolia there is always spontaneity. As I was walking from my house Ashlie and another trainee Ben were right outside of my gate. Ben joined us as we went to the Mongolian worship service.
We arrived at the church at 11pm and worship had already began. The worship leader had her guitar and hands were raised. I was amazed! Because I am learning mongolian I recognized many words and phrases like “Jesus is my brother” and “I love Jesus”. I took me no time to jump right into the flow. The prayer time was also an awesome experience . The people would just go forth in prayer for 5min ad than finish the chorus of the song that they would be singing. The korean pastor whom preached did a good job. (How do I know I don't speak korean....LOL)Although, I could not Identify many of the words he spoke I knew the name “Jesus” and I heard that name a lot. There was another minister whom I met yesterday also, and he proceeded to translate the sermon for me and my fellow trainees. However, this meant that there were three languages going on at once and it confused the pastor. (Korean>Mongolian >English) The pastor was speaking Korean the translator next to him mongolian and the guy by us english. Honestly, IT was POWERFUL!
After service there was food and fellowship and they asked me to pray and bless the food. I prayed and gave Jesus his glory and there was a loud chorus of AMEN when I was finished. I felt like I was at Chayil. ( Peace and Blessings to my father and pastor Clifton N. Hurt)The rest of the day included mongolian dance practice, a meeting with a cool young mongolian banker guy and a peaceful 4hr hike with a fellow trainee Ben. Ben does not say much but every-time I go on a hike with him he makes sure Im OK. Ben is 23 year old scoutmaster standing at about 6ft 5inches, meaning I'm nearly running up the mountains to keep up with him.
… I just finished dinner which was a cabbage, onion, carrot and vegan meat soup along with a slice of bread. I added cinnamon to my bread. The bread my mongolian mom makes from scratch is so delightful. I now turn from my journaling to working on things for the week ahead. I will be solo teaching and doing a seminar with counterparts this friday in a different town. These have been good days!
Clifton A. Hurt (Happy B-Day DAD!)
Journal Entry 8-7-2010
The last few days have been very eventful and I know that the days ahead will hold so much more. I spent the first few days of the week planning for a seminar that I would be giving. The seminar was for Mongolian teachers. For the seminar I worked with a mongolian counterpart named Oyunga and my american counterpart and fellow trainee katie. Our seminar topic was “How to Motivate Students to Speak English”. The idea is that most mongolian students are not motivated to speak english in the english classroom... Our sub-focus topics were “Games” and “Music &Media”. The Music and Media portion was my baby. I believe our presentation went over well.Yesterday when I arrived back from Nalik, I was very tired and irritated...(people can really say some dumb things) I was mainly tired so I got to my cabin and slept from 9pm to 9am. It was some of the best sleep I have had yet. My mongolian had breakfast prepared the next morning. It was more like brunch... I had a carrot, onion and cabbage salad sandwich. It was a delightful sandwich.
After to talking to my mongolian mom and older brother. I decided to get dressed and find out what my fellow trainees were doing. I heard that we were suppose to meet at 11am to talk about out projects. As I was walking from the school back to my cabin I ran into Ben. He told me that the meeting was at our language coordinators house. So we went to Bagies house and instead of doing any of the work I was suppose to do, I ended up making brownies with Erin and Nadra. We made six pans for or host family appreciation.
At 4pm Erin and I walked to the school for dance practice...I'm kinda upset that we are not dancing... (we did not find the music or so they say ;{ ) I think some of our crew were nervous and it was a easy way out!LOL It was looking really good too! *Tomorrow the guys from or group are going to lay concrete on the basketball court. We pre-gamed by pulling up weeds that were coming out of the cracked ground. 
Honestly, I am so done with training. I loved it and the time was well spent. Now I am ready to get to site and get to work. The/ My fellow trainees are awesome people. My language trainers and host family are “amazing”. However, I am now one week away form finding out where I will be serving for the next 24months. I am so excited! I want to start building the relationships with my real students, counterparts and site-mates, man, I am so adrenalized!
Clifton A. Hurt
August 2010
Peace Corps Mongolia
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