Christmas time in London Town!

SO SORRY for the ridiculous gap between posts- there was a small hiccup in my life: my laptop got stolen. Dana, Caroline and I went to Chipotle for dinner, the only one in London, because we were just craving some American food. It was really crowded, pretty much every American in London was there, and we were seated at a bar-style table with barstool chairs. We all piled our bags underneath the table and 15 minutes later I looked down and mine had been stolen. Inside was my ipod, wallet, laptop, and a book that my mom had given me that I was just about to finish. My first thought was that I wouldn't get to finish the book!! Everyone at the restaurant was super helpful, one of the guys we had been talking to ran out to check all the dumpsters and corner shops for my bag, and the manager of the restaurant gave me a handful of free meal vouchers! Woohoo! Lesson learned: I will back up my music and pictures multiple times in the future.

Other than that, life has been great! We gave all of our students books for Christmas and our last lessons were mostly reading stories and playing games, which they really enjoyed. At one of my schools we ate Christmas dinner with the kids, and one of my students flagged me over to eat with her and the other 3rd years. She finished before me and was sitting there for a while, then finally asked me "Are you almost done with your pudding?" "Well, pretty soon, why?" I asked. "I'm waiting for you so we can go play!" she said. So cute. I explained that I couldn't go outside and play with her so she should go on out with her friends, but then she got really sad because she wouldn't see me for 2 weeks. AH! I love these kids! 

Both of my housemates are gone and safely at home for Christmas, and now I am at my house with a fellow YAGM Kari Beth. On Saturday we, along with another YAGM Nathaniel and his sister will attempt a traditional English Christmas Dinner. It's a pretty big deal over here. I'm not sure how I feel about the Christmas Pudding, it's mostly dried fruit that's been soaked in alcohol for months, but it might be worth it just to light it on fire. 

This past weekend Kari Beth and I went to Paris and I got to see my mom and grandparents! It was absolutely amazing, and it snowed which made it feel more like Christmas. The downside to the snow: My family were stuck there for a few extra days, and my Grandparents are still in Munich as I type this. KB and I made it out alright after waiting at the train station for 3 1/2 hours to be re-assigned to a new train, but all in all Eurostar handled everything very well. Now it's time to relax, make buckeyes, and enjoy the holidays! This will be my first Christmas away from home :( 

Love and peace to you all, Happy Christmas!

KB and I at the Galleries Lafayette 

HUGE Christmas tree given to the city of London by Norway, a tradition since 1947

Gram, me, and Mom at Versailles 

A Breakthrough!!!!! ... and Harry Potter

One of my challenging students, the one that can't keep still, has had a breakthrough!! I took me almost losing my sanity, but all is well. Here's what happened.

I was nearing my breaking point with this child. She started rolling around on the floor during lessons, throwing her shoes across the room, grabbing materials right out of my hand, and causing general mayhem. Lord have mercy, I was losing my mind. Throughout all of this, I was remaining extremely supportive and positive because I don't know what her home life is like. But I'm sure she doesn't get much attention there because she was sure asking for some from me. Finally my supervisor asked to sit in on a lesson with me. Boy, was this child unhappy about that. As soon as she was surrounded by myself and my supervisor, she put her hands behind her head, pursed her lips, and didn't say a word for the rest of the lesson. But she didn't roll around on the floor either, so I think we broke even on that lesson.

My supervisor then told me to try a different tactic. Instead of greeting this student with a smile and always encouraging good work and progress, be extremely matter of fact about everything. If she gets something right, move right on ahead to the next thin, and see how she responds. So the next day comes and I go down to pick this student up for her lesson. I don't even say anything to her, I just ask the teacher if she could please excuse this child for her literacy lesson. The child comes out into the hall and tries to go up the stairs but I stop her and say "Now listen here one minute. We are going to do some hard work today, but if you do good work we will play on the computer at the end of the lesson. If not, I will walk you straight back to class and we will have a talk with your teacher. Do you understand?" and she nodded yes. So then I asked "Are you going to do good work today?" "Yes," she answered. "Alright then, give me a high five," I said. And she did. And the lesson was... perfect. She even wrote a sentence!! I don't think this child has ever written a sentence before. Granted, the sentence was "The cat is fat" but still. Major, major progress. I am still so happy about this. And the next lesson was the same! It's amazing how different all these kids are. Tweaking the techniques used with all of them is an art I'm still learning.

So that's what's going on in my service life, but in my free time I am doing things like GOING TO THE HARRY POTTER WORLD PREMIERE. Yup. I did. Thanks to my friend and fellow YAGM Nathaniel reminding me about the date, because I thought it wasn't until next week. It was AMAZING. All the actors were there, and we could see them all! And, JK Rowling was there. I almost died. It was so great. I am so excited to see the movie now!

Living in England is seriously amazing. I don't ever think about how extremely far away from home I am because communication is so easy. I can watch live concert streams from St Olaf, call home from my house phone, and of course see everyone's pictures on Facebook. Sometimes I do think about the huge ocean separating me from friends and family, and of the events that I'm missing, helping my best friend plan her wedding, but it's totally worth it. I am so happy I am doing this year.

We're introducing Thanksgiving to the British and German volunteers next week! It's a bit early, but the weekend before actual Thanksgiving is when everyone can get together. I hope they don't mind high caloric food because I am definitely cooking Southern style: lots of butter.

Cheers!
xx
Erin

Teaching Challenges

Five weeks into teaching has resulted in amazing and really challenging experiences. On the one hand, I am developing wonderful relationships with my students, learning their quirks and the best ways to teach them, and having a lot of fun. On the other hand, my patience has been pushed to limits that have until now never been reached.

One of my students is, I feel, a typical example of any student in any teacher's classroom: the one that cannot sit still. Have you ever met/been one of these? It is driving me off the walls. I have all the materials set out for our lesson, and no matter how fun a game we are playing, she manages to pick up whatever is in front of her, say, a marker, and have more interest in that. But I feel like she is a case I can deal with. What I am having the most trouble with is being a personal confidant to my students. One girl confessed yesterday to being bullied by a boy in her class. She broke down in tears and told us she had been beaten up by him before, more than once, and is constantly harassed. But none of her other classmates are brave enough to stand up to him. She found the confidence with another supervisor to go and tell her teacher, so thank goodness the staff of the school know and I pray they are going to do something about it. School bullying has got to be stopped, please be on the look out for it in your local schools and pray for the children affected by it.

Another one of my students is another classic example: the one you think you will not get along with at all and then end up being the closest to. She has an extremely limited vocabulary, so we work on that every lesson, but when I first met her I just assumed she hated me because she didn't say anything. She had been at Springboard last year and had a different tutor, so I just assumed she was sad that her tutor was gone and now she was stuck with me, the American with a weird accent who makes bad jokes. But now every time I see her she greets me with a hug, and yesterday she gave me the two notes I have attached below. It was so sweet and made me feel like I'm actually making a difference!

On a completely different note, I have been able to see much more of London, and even got to go to Bath thanks to my wonderful friends back at St Olaf! I went for the Jane Austen Festival, and about died from happiness. Seriously, the only bad part of that day was that I didn't have a costume to wear.

Yesterday was another YAGM's birthday, Nathaniel, so he came to London and my housemate Klara and I took him out on the town. It was wonderful! We went to places we always wanted to go to but had never been to, like Covent Garden, and it was completely by accident. We found an outdoor market and one stall was selling mulled wine. The owner came up to us and we started chatting, he was very nice and a fountain of food knowledge (so many more places to go try now) and after he found out we were full time volunteers in England he gave us free mulled wine! It was amazing and smelled like Christmas. Since we didn't have a map, we just walked around aimlessly after that. It was perfect. And we found where to get half price theatre tickets. Score!

I hope everyone is doing well, and if you're ever in London, or anywhere near it, let me know! I love visitors!

Peace-
Erin

 Pictures one of my students drew me :)

Also, why we need to teach them literacy. 

I'm a Springboard Teacher!

I am now teaching children, all by myself! Who woulda thought? My day goes something like this:

7:45- Leave the house and walk 20-30 minutes to the train station (depending on if it's raining or not)
8:15- Take the train to school
9:00 - 3:15- Teach lessons!
3:15-5:00- Write lesson plans and do other organizing/cleaning/whatever else needs to be done
5:30- Catch the train back
6:00- Crash on my couch with dinner and watch funny English soap operas. And/Or play banana grams with my fellow volunteers!

The lessons are all Literacy lessons, and are mostly phonics based, and go something like this:
1. Warm up routine - flashcards with different sound/letter combinations that they need to identify and then write in their exercise books.
2. Revise something already learned, such as y sometimes sounds like e, like in "party," and then think of other words that use that rule.
3. Introduce a new concept, like suffixes, and practice them with sentence dictations.
4. Reading! This is my favorite part, and the kids get so excited. One of my students is reading Esio Trot, and it's bringing back so many memories, I forgot how great that book is!
5. Revise high frequency words, as in words that we use all the time but you can't sound out, like "the," "was," "saw," and "again."
6. Play a game! They always win, and I'm not even trying to let them. Hmmm. I need to work on my "Guess Who?" skills.

It has been fabulous so far, and meeting these children has been amazing. Each of them brings a new challenge and a new joy. And today my supervisor asked me if I would mind classical music being played while the children had their lessons. Would I mind!?! Does she know who she's talking to? Naturally I made her a playlist with all the best pieces so we'll try that on Wednesday. Don't worry, Pachelbel's Cannon is not included.

In other news, London is wonderful! I get to see other YAGMS fairly often, and this weekend was no exception. Plus, the Pope was in town! I got to see him arrive at the Archbishop of Canterbury's palace, which is right across the street from my office. Pretty cool! I also was able to see a fellow Ole before he heads back to the states, which was wonderful. Like a piece of home! See the pictures below for what I ate :)

I miss home but am loving it here, I'm trying to update this every 2 weeks, but hopefully I'll get better at it and update it more often! Love and miss you all-

Erin

YAGMs in London!

The Springboard Full-time Volunteers :)

Massive. Fish. And. Chips. 

(Also, they eat this with mushy peas. I have yet to muster the courage to try them.)

First post - sorry for the delay!

Well, I am settled into my house in London and all volunteers but one are here, let's hope Dana gets her visa soon and can join us on Tuesday!

Sorry for the delay in creating a blog - apparently I am blog challenged, but I think I'm working through it. My first week here has been wonderful (apart from being sick, more on that later). I arrived on Thursday morning with the other YAGMs, and met one of my supervisors at Heathrow. We then traveled to my new home. I was too scared to leave the house alone for the first day and a half, trust me to get lost in London on my first day! I think not having a cell phone freaked me out. Anywho, my supervisor is still making fun of me, or "taking the mickey out of me" for this fact. See, I'm learning the lingo!

The first weekend was full of sightseeing with other YAGMs, and eventually with the other volunteers here at Springboard, and luckily everyone is fabulous! Phew! Our first day of work is tomorrow, I'm praying we don't get lost. Trust me to, though, I'm sure I'll find a way.

After my roommates convinced me I looked like a zombie, and after not being able to drink more than tea for two days, I went to the doctor and am on antibiotics to clear up my throat. And I'm feeling better! Thank you, international health care.

I'm so excited for  work tomorrow! I will be teaching literacy to children ages 5-11 and will have about 15 students. I cannot wait!

Walking through Heathrow, on our way to our new home

The London Eye

Westminster Abbey, we caught an excellent organ recital here!