Micah And The Unvarnished Take

Today, Micah (11) has offered to write a bit about learning and teaching language.  Here he is, in his own words:

So, I’m going to write about learning Tigrinya but teaching English. Let’s start with teaching. My dad, (Mark), Daniel, and I help with English for grades 4-6 every day for about 1 hour. The kids have been learning I am, you are, he is, etc. But the thing is that the classes change every week so you have different students each week. One class is good at English, but wild, and the other class is not so good and a lot calmer than the other class. So, it doesn’t really work out. But anyways, after about 2 weeks of kids trying their best, most kids finally got the conjugation right. So, now we are conjugating I am doing, you are doing, he is doing, etc. The way we practice is by calling kids up and asking questions such as, “What are you doing”, and they’ll answer by saying, “I am sitting down”, or “I am learning English”. 

All of dad's students really love tests; this girl stayed late today so she could take the test one day early.  Her friends really wanted to help her.

Now the fighting. Or more accurately goofing off. Kids are constantly talking and standing up. A few times my dad has had to be tough with kids for talking or fighting. But my dad has a co-teacher who works there, speaks great English, and obviously perfect Tigrinya. He’s very strict and doesn’t really take goofing off and/or fighting. But he leaves every 5 minutes for about 5 minutes. So the second he leaves kids stand up and start talking. And then the second they see the door handle turn, they rush back to their seats, and it becomes noticeably quieter.

There have only been a couple of times when kids have actually gotten into real fights. Apparently once when I stayed home to do work two girls started fighting and my dad pulled them apart but one girl reached across him to hit the other girl. So my dad had to send her out of the class. Another time on one of the first days a couple of boys started tackling each other onto the floor. And just yesterday when I stayed home, devotions, which are supposed to be from 1:30 to 2:00, ended at 1:45, so some third graders kept coming into the class and my dad tried to send them out but they wouldn’t listen. So some kids from our class took it upon themselves that they should hit them, and one kid in our class apparently spit in a third grader’s face.

But kids just wrestle for fun most of the time and aren’t actually angry. But all in all, I think that teaching is going well.

Many times the younger students like to walk home with us

Now let’s talk about learning Tigrinya. It’s definitely harder than teaching. Mom is doing ok because she speaks nearly fluent Amharic, and has heard Tigrinya her whole life. Most of the time we’ve been conjugating verbs that we need all the time but can never say, because we don’t know them. During the first few days we just learned simple phrases like, “Where are you from?, What type of food to you like?, and Where do you live?” We also conjugated I am, (Ane eye), you are, (Nikes icha), etc. Recently we’ve been learning about different emotions, like to be happy to be sad, to be angry, etc. We conjugated all of them for don’t be. But we rarely get to speak Tigrinya (minus my mom, obviously) outside of our classes. But we’re definitely getting better. We’ve found out the pattern for conjugating verbs, so, for the most part that’s easy.

Here are some of Daniel and Eli’s Tigrinya funny phrases. 

Daniel’s:  

“Intai diyom????” (What are those????)

 “Kabey metsika, nabey heideka?” (Where did you come from, were did you go?)

 “Kulu gizay Tony Romo godeu eyu” (Tony Romo is always injured)

 Eli’s: 

 “Hasib Mcfly, Hasib!” (Think Mcfly, think!) 

Anyways, we’re doing alright in Tigrinya. But we have a teacher who you can never really expect when to come. The first day he was 1 hour and a half early but wasn’t even knocking on our gate and was standing in the grass across our compound. So some days he’ll come 1 hour early and other days he’ll come 1 hour late. But one day when he came when we were eating breakfast and we finally told him to come at 10:00. So he came on time the next day, but the day after that came at 9:30. We told him again to come on time. So for about a week he did, but one day he came at 8:50 and my mom said that we weren’t ready and to come back later. But 15 minutes later he knocked on our gate. My dad said he was still 50 minutes early but it was ok. Then he got a confused look on his face and turned on his phone and said he thought it was 10:00. Sure enough his phone said 10:05. It turns out that his phone was an hour ahead and that he woke up and thought it was 9:30 and rushed out to get a taxi. When he got here he thought my mom was getting on his case for coming 10 minutes early. But we are definitely improving. 

Mom gets some peace and quiet on her bed

Now to my mom’s soap opera. Hazal’s aunt saw her walking and then Ozan, (her biological brother) pulled a gun on Gulsarin, (Hazal’s sort of mother). Well, that’s enough for this Thursday. Thanks for reading.