Same rollercoaster - different operator

My class has a new teacher. She is very different from our last one which is both good and not so good.

Good: she will not accept "нет" or "да" as an answer she wants complete sentences first thing in the morning as well as walking out the door at the end of the day. Whether or not you know the word you want to say does not matter.

Also good: we spend part of our day holding (or trying to hold) a conversation with her. At times we need help. Pretty much all the time. Sometimes it's funny because she just feeds us a word at a time either because we got an ending wrong or it is a new word for us. When we get to the end of the sentence she says "Now repeat." Like we are supposed to remember it! This feeding us and our regurgitating it goes on until we can make the sentence unassisted. We are a patient group. She sometimes is. Sometimes she'll take one of our sentences and play "The House the Jack Built" with it. For instance. "I read a good book last night" will become "I read a good, long book last night at 8:00". This will go on untile we are reading a good, long, fiction book last night while laying in bed listening to the crickets chirping and mating. It's like awaiting execution when you realize you are the last in line.

She corrects our tests swiftly and goes over what we missed, she took some sentences from me that were not assigned and not only corrected them but typed them up for me. Very helpful.

Not so good. She seems bewildered that we do not recall every word that has passed our ears and eyes. "We just had that!" she will say referring to one of the words of a two-page dialogue we read earlier. I think she gets frustrated but does not show it. "Please remember." She will say. I used a new verb conjugation this morning. "Now, will you remember?" she asked. "I'll try." I answered honestly. She looked so disappointed. It's really funny. I have to keep a lid on the sass.

She gives us a LOT of homework. (so did our last teacher - coincidence? I think not.) We knock ourselves out doing it and she (so far) has not been too interested in it after assigning it. One day I specifically asked her for priorities in our assignment; what will we do in class Monday? She told us that we would do our narratives. I spent a good deal of the weekend memorizing and practicing delivering my narrative (poor Douglas). It's Wednesday and she still hasn't asked for it. Yesterday, she prioritized our homework 1,2,3 . . . This morning we did #7, 10 and one that wasn't even part of the assignment.

It's surprising that I am keeping a good attitude throughout all this. I figure this is all part of moving forward and building on what we know instead of waiting for everything to be solid. The institute has a fabulous reputation for turning out good speakers of languages. The Russian departmens specifically gets much praise and respect. So I'm trusting it.

I think of when I taught piano. I realize that I used some of these techniques with my students. The good and the not so good. I remember playing a game with students where I would play a note or two (depending on their level) and have them play it back. If they did it correctly I'd add a note or two to that. We'd go on until they couldn't remember. It was fun. (For me anyway.) Sometimes I would show up for a lesson with a piece I wanted the student to learn. "But I didn't practice that!" They'd worry. I told them that I knew that it was a new piece. I assured them that there were no new notes, just the same notes in a different order. I did that because I knew they could do it. I'm wondering if that is the motivation behind the way these classes catapult forward every day.

This last paragraph is purely for sympathy so you may skip it if you can't stomach it. This week we have 91 new vocabulary words to learn and 17 phrases (some of which use words NOT on our vocabulary list). In addition to that, we have lists of words from the reading portion of our day which I just found out they actually expect us to learn!!!! You may be laughing at me but we are talking about apx. 50 words PER DAY. Does anyone out there besides me think that humanly impossible?

Blood and some of my favorite words

I'm on a rant this morning. I tell you this so that if you are not in the mood you can skip this long paragraph. I am distressed at hearing the news of our American and Mexican consulate employees (and the husband of one) shot to death in Mexico supposedly by someone in the drug cartel. Here is what needs to be said. If you are doing any illegal drugs their death is your fault. If you smoke the occasional joint - even if you did not purchase it with your money - if you snort the social snuff of cocaine their blood is on your hands. Shame on you. We all know and agree that these people should not have been killed leaving grieving friends, co-employees and family behind. We need to talk up the fact that if Americans were not so d*&(d addicted to instant pleasure and escape this may have not happened. Part of me feels like I'm probably saying this to people who would never consider illegal drugs. I fight that because I know that drug users are all over the place - driving our children to school (I have a former friend who regularly drove a school bus after a night of snorting cocaine), working in our legislature to pass laws against these things and some of them even sleep next to us. We do not always know who has a drug problem. I want it to be known that even occasional use is a problem even if you are never late for work and never show outward signs of usage, it is a problem because it is illegal and leads to greedy drug wars that kill innocent people. A baby is orphaned because of your habit and another baby will never be born because of it. Shame on you.

Okay, I'm through. If you totally disagree with me, I'd like to hear your side. Please write me. If I sit here stewing in my own opinions I'll never grow.

I want to share a couple of my favorite Russian words. The first is ГУби which sounds like "gubey" as in "kiss my 'gubey'". 'Gubey' means "lips". If I get frustrated with Douglas - not that I ever do living in this 400 or so square foot apartment with the puppy-poop brown walls - I tell him to "kiss my gubey" which he does and everything is alright. Aahh, love. The other favorite word I'll share with you is Дай which sounds like "die" as in dead, gone. It means "give" in its imperative form. Дай! It really puts the urgency in my desire for something (say, chocolate) when I can put my hand out and shout "Die!" Russian can be fun!