Yeah, so yesterday I got put in front of most of the students at school, and after the director of the school introduced everyone by their full names, he introduced me as:
John, substitute for Tober.
It's nice to know he won't be forgotten.
I had my first three classes today. They were just introductions, but went pretty well.
A big deal has been made of the fact that there are at least 50 students in each class. I'm sure I'll feel it a lot more later on, but right now, 50 seems a lot like 30 - they're still a bunch of strange kids tat don't understand me very well.
Their desks are 2-3 person affairs where the bench seat is attached to a writing surface that is angled as to facilitate writing. Unfortunately, it's not meant to ease standing.
Proper respect for a tech includes always standing when you're speaking, so these desks make things very awkward for the student to stand as they stay hunched over while trying to answer a question.
The rooms all have overhead lighting - a couple fluorescent fixtures - and a couple fans that sometimes work. Windows have screens, but if the wind is up, there are always a couple windows that rattle incessantly. All the rooms are painted with the MOZ stripe - about eye level, whatever the solid color is changes abruptly to an off-white. I don't know why, but just about every public room is painted in this manner. Chalk is usually in decent supply, but erasers are hard to come by if not impossible. Students all have their individual notebooks for each class - small, 40-page paperback journals that they are to hang on to throughout 10th grade. So when they write, it's carefully and slowly.
I spend a fair amount of time planning out what I was going to say and how to say it as my introduction to these students. When I walked into my first class, I just started talking for about 5 or 10 minutes without my notes. It was nice, but apparent that only about half of the students were understanding. During the second class a student outright told me that it was difficult to understand my manner of speaking.
Now, I know that my grammar was, for the most part, correct, and the vocabulary I was using was simple. They could definitely hear me, so it was definitely my accent. And I knew this before, but I try hard to change my accent - the way I say Portuguese words. However, the problem lies mainly in what parts of my body I use to resonate my sounds, and this seems to be different than Mozambicans. They have a very chesty sound, and mine is based in the head. So I have problems comprehending and so do they due to this.
However, this is not the extent of the problem. When I understand a grammatical construction or a complicated word, I tend to say it quickly in order to demonstrate my understanding of it. This doesn't help. This is the first step I will take tomorrow to help the students understand me.
Additionally, and most importantly, we are communicating in a mutual second tongue. Now, with people who have an English or Romance background, I have no problem communicating. Is it only the chest/head resonance issue? No, it's how we think.
The more I learn about Changana, the more I understand the Portuguese that is spoken here, because I understand the thought processes of the language. I have the same problems when speaking in English to South Africans or Zimbabweans. It's easy for me to understand, because I've been exposed to many different constructions. But to a non-native speaker, they only need to know how to express an idea in a couple ways. So if the ways I want to express myself are out of that scope, then the brain reads words and not ideas. From time to time, I have this problem with non-native English speakers, so it makes sense. It is just one of the many ways Mozambique and America have made compromises to meet in the middle, and there isn't a lot of middle ground. So the more I talk with my students, the better they will understand me and the more native constructions I will pick up. Once again, a matter of time, but for now I can work on speaking slowly and clearly.
I think it would be cool to know 5 languages when I leave Moz. I've got English nailed. Portuguese is on its way. French is somewhere in my head, but will soon get a refresher course. Changana is already starting, and Spanish will be easy to pick up again once Portuguese is in. Yeah, that would be neat. I'd also like to learn Greek, German, Russian and a Chinese tongue at some point. I've got some time for that.
Catrina went home. Don't know why, but I'm sad. So we're down to 35.
Peace
John
