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Thursday 24 January 2013

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We woke up to a winter wonderland this Monday in Sheffield. It had snowed heavily overnight and the whole city is covered in a cold white blanket. Once we had finished jumping up and down in excitement and planning all the snowball fights and snowmen we could build, we faced our first hurdle - how to get to school. I live up one of Sheffield's many hills so couldn't drive in. The car was stuck under a load of snow and ice. After a desperate search online to see if any buses were running, we put on many layers of clothing and trudged down to wait with the rest of the frozen Sheffielders. We waited for what seemed like an eternity in the cold before the bus struggled along the road and eventually made it to school nearly an hour late to find that all the students were there and waiting for us. It just goes to show how dedicated our students are that they walked through all the bad weather to have English lessons.
 One of our students, Kahlifa, has spent most of his free time sledging since the snow started and gave us some video of his first attempt. Unfortunately, a tree got in his way! He told us that he improved later on and can now happily go down the hill without incident. 

We've got more snow forecast for tomorrow so here's to many snowy days to come!


Thursday 10 January 2013

Do you speak Farsi?

We all had a nice break over Christmas to recharge our batteries for the new year ahead - which was just as well as our first lesson back left me feeling dazed and confused. As part of the TESOL course, there is a section called 'The Unknown Language,' which sounds like we're going on an expedition to the Amazon to track down a member of a remote tribe, but actually, it just means learning a language that is unknown to us. We have a teacher called Artemis in the school who was originally from Iran, so the unknown language on our TESOL course is Farsi. I had been quite excited about the four Farsi lessons we would be taking. It's always nice to learn new skills and I was looking forward to speaking to Artemis in her native tongue.

So we all shuffled into class on Tuesday night, not really knowing what to expect. Personally, I've not studied another language in a classroom setting since I was at school, so I surprised myself by beginning to feel slightly nervous. As this was our first meeting since early December, Artemis greeted us in English and did some housekeeping also, thankfully, in English as if she had tried to explain teaching timetables in Farsi, I don't think any of us would have been where we needed to be! She then changed into Farsi and began the lesson.