Richard Halverstadt: January 29, 2011: Freedom Square revisited

Saturday, January 29, 2011

January 29, 2011: Freedom Square revisited

January 29, 2011: Last week's classes tended to be rather routine, so I have nothing astonishing to report. However, I did change course on what I was teaching the "challenging" classes. I resorted to reviewing worksheets that were originally taught by one of the other English teachers. She suggested I have the students read the sentences in the exercises since many of them make pronunciation mistakes. So, I handed out papers for each of the students to recite and reseated the students so that they were alone at a table instead of in pairs. I was surprised to discover that this seating arrangement worked wonders in keeping them quiet since they had no neighbor to talk with. Why didn't I think of this before!!?? It worked like a miracle in the most challenging class, too. So successful was it that I allowed the door to the class to be opened (it was hot in the classroom) because I was not concerned about my students making any noise that could disrupt other classes!

Next week I will be relieved of all my classes on Monday since one of the English teachers teaching the seniors needs my assistance in conducting the oral exam for her students. We will give each student 20 minutes to talk individually with us in English and she has said that she wants me to do all the questioning since she may be biased because she teaches them for all their classes. This means meeting students from 7:45 to roughly 3:30 with only 20 minutes off for lunch. Should be interesting seeing the capabilities of seniors.

As mentioned previously, I wanted to explore Freedom Square a bit more. Before going there, however, I went a bit north of the Parliament Building to visit the cluster of art and antique shops in that section of the city. There are quite a few shops that have all sorts of interesting art, ceramics, furniture, carpets, and curios. Unfortunately I arrived a bit after most of the shops closed so I'll have to explore this section of the city again some day.

I proceeded south of Parliament to Freedom Square and this time walked around the entire square taking pictures of the MTV building (Hungarian television -- Magyar TV), the Central Post Office, and the central monument with the sun shining on it.