The last week at school before a busy half-term

I enjoyed my, now regular, Monday morning lie in, but still made the effort to go into school earlier than I needed to, since I had been asked by one of the teachers to help out in one of her lessons. Naturally, as seems to happen far too often, the teacher had in fact forgotten that she'd asked me and was shocked to find me in her lesson. To say the Germans are so efficient and logical, they can also on the other hand, be very disorganised. But nevertheless, I stayed in the class and hopefully provided a little assistance. My conversation class that followed went positively swimmingly. The students were as motivated as ever, and I even heard them having conversations with each other in English before the lesson even started, which is unheard of! They seemed to like the activities and we were able to have a little banter. It went really well and like in many of my conversation classes, I am growing to like them more after every lesson. I waited for my following class, filled with feelings of trepidation. It was time to take the infamous Year 5 class. However fortunately this week, they were considerably better. I took the lesson, with the teacher sitting in the room. They worked well through the exercises, even at times completely silently, and only got a little excited as it neared home time. I only had to tell off one student who threw some paper at me when my back was turned (And I surprised myself - I properly told him off. Like a real teacher!) I was pleased by their enthusiasm and they seemed excited to have me there and they all made an effort to communicate with me. Lets hope their attitude keeps up!

On the way home I visited the supermarket to buy some tea. It was very busy with lots of other people evidently doing the same. Two checkouts were open, both with growing queues. As the queues grew longer and longer, suddenly a voice over the tannoy system informed us that a third checkout was now available for use. I have heard about this situation in Germany but this was the first time I had experienced it and the following took me by surprise. Immediately people at the back of the queues, sprinted (yes, sprinted) towards the new checkout, whilst people who were towards the front of the queues tried to shuffle to the new checkout. People with a trolley used it as a battering ram and quite literally forced their way to the front. It really was chaos. Amazingly nothing was said this whole time, and people who were previously at the front of a queue but who had now ended up at the back of this new one, just sighed and accepted their fate. I guess this is just because its normal. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I imagined the situation in England and considered all the pleasantries that would be exchanged. "Oh, no, you go first. You were before me in the queue" "Oh, are you sure?" "Yes, of course" "Why thank you. How very kind of you." - That type of thing. Again just another difference in culture. I meanwhile, had stood my ground and stayed out of the chaos. I'm pretty sure I had paid and was exiting before many of the others who had moved, were even loading their things onto the belt. Sometimes, I guess it pays to be the 'Engländer'.

On Tuesday I did some more speaking practice with the Year 7 class. This time I prepared some cards which made the conversation flow better. One group of boys asked me when I was leaving and then when I was coming back. "I'm not coming back" I replied and they all let out a little cry "awwwww". They were genuinely disappointed! I thought this was lovely and made me feel really appreciated and reassured that I'm doing something right. After two lessons where I just assisted the teacher and a conversation lesson, where I was once again required to act at the front, it was time to leave.

On Wednesday I helped out in a few classes with the younger ages. A lesson with the Year 5 class, I found particularly funny, since in an effort to engage these over-enthusiastic students, the teacher had come up with the 'month-Macarena'. This involved the class doing the Macarena, but singing the 12 months of the year as they performed the dance. It was good fun and they loved it! Another aspect of this class that made me smile was the system of a 'distribution service'. Whenever the teacher wants sheets handing out, he simply calls 'distribution service' and the two assigned pupils for that week, immediately jump up and sprint to the front of the class and proceed to hand out the sheets. Just another example of German efficiency :) Another aspect I think is particularly good in many German schools, is their system of 'Lerntutoren' or 'student helpers'. If a student needs help with a particular topic in any subject, there is another pupil who they can approach and who will stay after school with them to 'teach' them. I saw year 10 pupils helping younger year 8 pupils and thought it was really sweet. Yes, this idea was implemented in my high school, but was it used? Are you kidding! Students staying behind for more work?! You'd be laughed at! But not here. It's really nice to see.

The weather for these first three days has been particularly smashing. With the sun rising earlier and earlier I've been able to enjoy the sunlight on my ride to school and even more so on my return home. My thick winter coat has been replaced by a lighter jacket (which I hope is a permanent change) and I've still been getting a little too warm. Its so beautiful to be able to appreciate the sunshine, especially since I get to ride in it. It's certainly improving everyones mood, especially mine, and it makes me excited for more of the same. Watching beautiful sunsets out of my window is the perfect way to relax and appreciate what I'm doing right now.

Thursday was a pretty busy day, with a run of one lesson after another. After a few lessons practising speaking with the Year 10 classes, I taught a Year 9 class. The class was split and the teacher took one half outside the classroom, whilst I stayed in the classroom and taught this half. It went really well and I really enjoyed myself. It's the first real 'teaching' that I'd done on my own in a while. I felt really relaxed and the class were so well behaved. My weekly afternoon conversation class went well, although when I reminded the class that we only have 4 more lessons before their exam, gasps of horror filled the room. Maybe I need to intensify my teaching! One thing I noticed on Thursday was, not necessarily how much their language had improved, but how much their confidence had improved. Girls who would previously say nothing, now converse with me, whilst those who were confident to start with are even more confident. It's really, really nice to see. I have to admit that this week, I've found myself pretty bored in the afternoons. With my essay nearing completion, and once I've read the news, updated myself on social media, and checked emails, I found myself with little to do. It can be pretty awful and I think, for a lot of people, they really have to make a large effort if you want to avoid boredom on a Year Abroad. Fortunately for Lois and I we have each other. I actually cannot envisage a Year Abroad without Lois. I just do not know what I would do at weekends and how I would motivate myself to get through the week. We talk regularly during the week over Facebook and without Lois I would be totally lost. This is just another mark of respect for anyone who does this experience on their own.

So as this term draws to end, it marks 10 more school weeks for us before our job is done. The last 8 weeks at school since returning to Germany have been a slog, but it's very reassuring to know that this long stretch is behind us. The next term is 5 weeks long, we then have Easter break and then 5 more weeks and that's it! We cant wait till the end and now, it feels very much in sight.

The sun made another appearance on Friday meaning our walk into Regensburg and our subsequent shopping trip was very enjoyable. We now have a regular Friday lunch spot and it never disappoints. We bought our food for the weekend at the supermarket and then returned to the flat. After a chilled afternoon and in an effort to make the most of the sun we went for an evening walk before tea. We explored a new set of paths and trails leading through lush open fields and thick Bavarian forests. It was delightful and the landscape was totally different to anything in England, which served as even more of a reason to appreciate things like this whilst we are here. Half way round our loop, we came across a farmer in a tractor spreading manure on his crops. The manure was spraying out of the back of the trailer in a huge way. As we got nearer, we saw that, not only was it being spread on the field, it was also spraying all over the path right in front of us. In all honesty, we thought, being German, the farmer would just continue on his current trajectory and we would have to jump out of the way, into the neighbouring field, to avoid a very messy situation. However, as the farmer saw us, he stopped, turned off the spray and waited for us to walk past. As we passed I smiled, nodded, and gave him the thumbs us. The friendly farmer smiled back and gave us a little wave. We had wrongly presumed that this wouldn't happen, based purely on false stereotypes. Even after 6 months of living here, it's difficult to avoid thinking these stereotypes. Even though many really couldn't be any more wrong. We felt the farmers actions were a very 'British' thing to do and once again shows that Germans are a lot more thoughtful and considerate than many of you think.

Saturday was similar in the fact we did a little shopping and went for a walk. We now like to use the butcher at the local supermarket, instead of getting pre-packaged meat. It's cheaper and the quality is better. At first it was a little scary asking for specific quantities of a specific German meat (believe me, there is a lot of choice!) but now we're pretty used to it and it's quite nice being able to do so. Following our afternoon walk, we came back and made some yummy home made burgers, before packing and getting ready for our busy week ahead.

Tomorrow morning we will get up bright and early in order to catch our train. The train journey to Düsseldorf from Regensburg will take us over 9 hours so we're preparing a few videos to watch on Lois' iPad to make it a little more bearable. As I said in my previous post, we have lots planned. As jealous as all our teachers are that we get to experience the real Karneval in Cologne, they have also warned us about how crazy it gets, so we are to be careful! Nevertheless we cant wait!

We return next Saturday, so hopefully I will be able to update you all on the weeks events via another post on Sunday evening.

Until then,

Tschüß!