October 4, 2010: This and That

October 4, 2010: It was just a normal day for teaching today. The students were well behaved for the most part. They seemed to be content with the grades I gave them from their test last week. Then I had to enter the grades by hand into the student record book using blue ink of course. There were some students who had missed a dialog here and there or the test and they will received a low grade if they don't make the work up. I gave them until tomorrow to come to me with a plan on how they will make up the missed work. At this point, the responsibility is up to them, not me. I also gave my intermediate students their first dictation. I'm using Aesop's Fables since they're individual stories that have lessons to them and also introduce figures of speech in English (e.g., Sour Grapes). Then I introduced the intermediate students to a dialog that has six idioms in it. Hopefully, this will be more of a challenge than the easier dialogs I had been using.

After class, I had my Hungarian lesson and finally learned how to say "I don't speak Hungarian" in Hungarian (sort of an oxymoron, isn't it). It's so embarrassing having people come up to me to ask directions or help and all I can do is smile at them. Now, they'll at least know I don't speak Hungarian and that's why I'm no being more helpful. I also learned some other great sentences to use. Who knows -- maybe I won't have to say "I don't speak Hungarian" for much longer (ha ha ha). 


After my Hungarian lesson, Balazs accompanied me to the bank because over the weekend I couldn't use my ATM card. I guessed (correctly) it was because I hadn't initialized it at the bank for the first use. However, the bank insists on seeing my passport before they will help me. This could be a pain if I always have to present my passport before doing any banking business. The lady said it was only for the first time. We'll see. 

After class last week, a student came to me to share a funny website that seems to be popular in Hungary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN5PoW7_kdA) It's called the annoying orange. Be careful: if you click on it, you'll agree that the orange IS very annoying. If you want more, there are other annoying orange videos that you can click on, too. It was nice that the students feel comfortable sharing things like this with me.