Chaos, laughter, and children

Today we spent most of the day in Tarnowskie Góry helping teach some of the children English.  After the usual cold cuts for breakfast at Daniel's church, we sped to Asia's house (we were running a tad late) and then followed her to the school.  Daniel dropped us off there and Asia gave us another rundown of what was going to happen.  Nothing really prepared us for what happened (which is basically always true when making plans that involve children).  When we walked into the main school building and there was a banner that read "American Day."  Talk about feeling like movie stars!  A lovely lady named Dominica was introduced to us and right away she gave us the itinerary, explained the activity, and then the kids arrived.  Karleigh, Sarah, and Jordyn were each assigned a group of kids and they were in charge of helping the students understand the words and teach them how to pronounce them correctly.  It was Carrie's job to listen to all of the children pronounce certain words and to approve tasks if they had done them well.  There were three rounds of this activity with three different groups of children.







After a morning of chaos and laughter, we went to a traditional Polish restaurant and (as Dr. E would say) it was "so good!"  We sat around the table with Asia and Kasia eating and talking about life, food, and cultural differences for about two hours. We then went back to the school, but this time we went into the building that held language lessons.  The name of the program is called Be Clever.  Dominica also ran this flawlessly.  Karleigh and Sarah helped tutor students who's ages ranged from 3-16, and Jordyn and Carrie helped with 7-8 year-olds.  It was awesome to get to see just how much these children have learned in such a short time!  The last thing that we did at the school was talk with six high schoolers about American life and the English language.  They taught us some interesting Polish facts and even a couple Polish words, and we told them some fun facts about America and Malone.  We all watched some videos on accents and slang words, talked about our favorite music, and just got to know a little bit about each other.





After a long day helping teach lessons to the students, we went back to Daniel's church for supper.  The girl's had "Daniel withdrawal" because they had not seen him or heard his laugh since breakfast that morning.  Aye chi caramba it was a long time!  Overall, it was a great day and the girls enjoyed getting to help teach Polish students English and talk to them about America.