To be lector in senior academy/How Romanian ladies rock with me!

Even teaching English language retired people was not mentioned in my Activity Agreement, I enjoy it a lot.

Firstly I was scared, there is big intergenerational gap and participants of English course are in approximately in the same age as my grandparents. I had some experiences about leading different type of courses, but never language one as I am not English native speaker.

First 3 months I just supported Romanian lector and from February 2012 I "lead" my own group, which is supported by Romanian assistant. I am really grateful for Raluca, who is always ready to participate in my "crazy" ideas. We started to come to lessons in masks. This strategy help to our students build up their vocabulary in English language. Until now we were housewives in aprons, rabbits, Salvador Dalí and Zorro, banditos, etc. Our ladies have a fun and I realised they really improved their communication skills as they comment our masks spontaneously.

Nowadys it is 8 months of my teaching and I had beuatiful with my ladies. As this course is organized within Grundvig programme as because of I am not professional teacher - lessons are not based so much on traditional model of teaching languages.

There are also retired teachers from highschools in my group and I can see that they would like to be taught in the style there use to do. Reading, translating, writing, excercises together and GRAMATICS all the time.

All the time they are ready for the homeworks. It was little bit strange for me to give homework to people who are older than me, but finally I was joking - this is "system revange." Who can enjoy to give homework to retired teachers? :)

To create win-win model for both of us, I started to prepare special topics for my ladies. They wrote essays about things I consider useful and helpful for my stay in Romania. Until now I have collection of recipies of Romanian tradional food, tips for travelling in my hosting country, explanation which personalities from Romanian history are ther in banknotes, personal letters about tricks how to spend summer in Romania, etc.

I have really nice relationship with them, for example they brought me little presents and sweets for International Women Day as well as bijuteries called "martisoare" - that are representing Romanian spring tradiotions for celebreting new nature cycle and youth.

In June there will be just 3 more lessons and we are done with summer modul of English lesson. I have to prepare something special for good-bye lesson, so cross your fingers for me to surprise my ladies in unforgotable style!