Have folders, will teach!

Gosh I am sorry this blog post is going to be so long (if you stop reading somewhere in the middle I don’t really blame you lol). 

Ok the first thing I want to tell you about is the school!!!  My co-founder (Meredith) and I have been working since March to set up this Free English Course in the Azores.  They don’t have anything like it here and we were worried that there wouldn’t really be enough interested students for it to work.  We set up the registration process with a google doc, made promotional materials, worked with the local government to secure a free space and even had the local paper run two articles about the program.  In addition to creating the infrastructure we also created lesson plans, which will probably need to be modified now that we met the students.  But the idea that I am trying to communicate to you is that I have been waiting and planning for the first day of this course for a long time.  My roommate here even told me she heard me sleep talking about planning the syllabus the night before the first day of the course lol (apparently I plan in my sleep). 

The government here was generous enough to let us use a room at the Pavlihao Multiusos (which is sort of a gym, bowling alley, café and conference center all in one…. and I guess now also a school).  Anyway Friday was our first day, I was so excited to get there and see that the students had actually shown up.  I know that sounds weird but it’s just that feeling of something I created is actually going to work (it’s a great feeling.)  We wanted to use the first day to test everyone’s current ability so that we could divide them into smaller groups based on skill level.  The diagnostic test consisted of a reading, writing and speaking session.  I was in charge of doing one-on-one interviews with each student to get an idea of their fluency, vocabulary…it was great because in doing so I also go to know each of them.  After all the testing we gave them a lunch break and told them to come back at 2:00.  It was 1:56 and still no students had returned to the room AHHH I was so worried that no one was going to come back LOL.  Fortunately, by 2:05 all 30 students did in fact come back to the classroom YAY! No quitters yet haha we were excited! After Friday I felt a lot more at ease and excited about our whole project here.  The students seem really nice, interesting and motivated.  A lot of them have really big dreams: one wants to be an artist, many want to be doctors, another wants to be a journalist.  I honestly am so excited for everyday I get to teach!

I will at least mention the other stuff I’ve been doing here:  We saw an old castle called Forte de Sao Sebastiao, then this afternoon we went on a three hour hike to the top of Monte Brasil (panoramic shots will be uploaded by tomorrow.) It was incredible! If anyone needs a good location for a yoga studio or some sort of zen meditation place I highly recommend the summit of Monte Brasil…then again I could probably make a killing off of a vending machine too because we were exhausted.  Now we are going to get some dinner and have a night in, tomorrow we are going to the only Southern Baptist church in probably all of the azores, planning lessons and visiting the other two “major” cities.  I will try to blog more frequently and with fewer words haha.  

Some other great things to be mentioned: 

*  Ice cream shots - they taste just like strawberry ice cream and they were free

*  It finally rained once so I got to wear my new rain jacket!

*  "Eu gostaria um meia de leite"that is how I order my coffee, it is delicious!

Congratulations, if you read the entire blog (if you leave me a comment then you get a souvenir as your prize!)

Love always,

Anya Sophia Keithley