For those of you who keep up with this procrastinating
novelist, you’ll know that I recently traveled to Budapest, Hungary a few weeks
ago. For those of you who know me, you
won’t be surprised it took me this long to write about it. It was a wonderful experience, full of
beautiful sights, warm and wonderful people, and some amazing students. I’ve included pictures of the parliament building, the Szechenyi
Baths, the Chain Bridge at night, and a group photo of my class (in that order on the page).
The Baths were so wonderful and relaxing, I never wanted to
leave! And my students were so
wonderful, I wish I could have spent more time there (those poor kids got a lot
of English vocabulary thrown at them in a 5-day span.)
I’m only sad that I didn’t get a picture of my host family, who were
both fun and informative ;) I stayed
with a young couple (Nora and Robert) with two small children—one was just over
one (Balint), and the other was three (Andris).
Those were two extremely adorable kids!
Traveling is always an interesting experience in which one
packs way more activities into a day than one is really prepared for. By the time I left (super freaking) early on
a Saturday morning—seven days after arriving—I thought my legs were going to
fall off. But I didn’t really mind,
because I now have a new experience and a new country under my belt.
In regards to this, I want to focus a large part
on my experience teaching English. I had
a lovely time several months ago observing one of my favorite former high
school teachers as part of a practical section in a teaching class I took
spring semester. Based on that short
experience, I knew teaching could be a tough but rewarding job—though it did
make me rethink the age-level I would want to teach. However, teaching (or in my case, observing)
a class full of 14 and 15-year-olds the finer aspects of the English language
is vastly different from teaching that same age-group English basically from
scratch.
The most terrifying part of this event was that I (and
really most of us on the mission trip) went into this with absolutely no
training and very little indication of what we could expect. Admittedly, that was also part of the
fun. I think I learned as much in those
five days as my students. I started
out with seven girls in my class, and they all had varying levels of English
proficiency. Yet, I never got a clear
indication of who could speak at what level…because these were seven extremely
quiet girls. As someone who finds it
hard not to talk during every moment of the day, this created a certain level
of difficulty for me. I said daily prayers of thanks for Boti, that guy looking cool in the group photo below, who volunteered as my translator. (That poor guy got a lot more English thrown at him than he expected, too) I didn’t find out
until the third day that one of the girls in my class had never learned any
English, and I was told by the person translating for me that she felt bad that
she couldn’t answer me when I asked her a question. This, in turn, made me feel awful, so I tried
to make her understand that all I wanted was her best effort, and I would never
be disappointed with a wrong answer so long as she was learning something. I’m not sure if that got across the language
barrier, but I hope it did. My real
break in the ice came on the fourth day when I discovered a Whovian in my
classroom. That was an amazing
revelation—not only because Doctor Who is the absolute best, but because that
girl went from quiet to non-stop chatter in seconds flat. I was most impressed when she quoted an
entire monologue from Series 5 in English…which is something I sure can’t do,
even though I speak the language. She
even ended up translating for many of the other students who were struggling to
keep up with my own non-stop chatter. It
just goes to show that Doctor Who is universal, and really can solve pretty
much every problem ;)
There were a few aspects of teaching English in a foreign
country that I hadn’t anticipated. The
first was that I noticed a subtle break-down of my own English skills. Even as someone who likes to focus on grammar
(though I’m sure those who are better versed could find hundreds of errors in
my writing…not to mention my speech), I bent every rule I could think of to
make myself understood. This was also
interesting as someone who constantly uses complicated words. I went from saying things like “verbose” to
“lots of words.” That was an unexpected
quandary for me. I had to repurpose my
vocabulary so I wouldn’t confuse the heck out of both my students and the
people of the church. However, the most
unexpected problem I found was that, despite the many other foreign countries
I’ve traveled to, once I modified my speech to keep everything as simple as
possible, I subconsciously expected everyone to whom I spoke to be able to
understand what I was saying. I never
thought that I’d be one of those people who expected everyone to know my
language no matter to what country I traveled.
And I’m not entirely convinced that was what was happening. The closest I can get to explaining the
situation is to tell you all about Andris.
He was a normal 3-year-old. He
spoke constantly on topics that he found to be of great interest…except he only
knew Hungarian, and by the time I had met him I had only learned how to say
“yes” and “I don’t understand” in his language. Needless
to say, we did not have long conversations.
But, the reason I bring Andris up is because there was no concept in his
young mind that would let him comprehend the fact that I couldn’t understand
him. He figured out something was wrong,
but his solution was to constantly ask me “What is this called?” in
Hungarian. Once his mom translated, I would
answer by giving him the English word for whatever he pointed at. When I did so, he would giggle a little, as
if to say: “Silly lady, that’s not what that’s called.” Now, intellectually, I know that not everyone
speaks English—nor do I expect them to.
However, with absolutely no Hungarian skills other than the basics, I
was at a loss for how to make myself understood except to keep trying simpler
words and phrases, much like Andris. In the end, I had to
rely on my severely limited Hungarian, their slightly more advanced English,
and lots of hand gestures. I’m so
grateful that the people of the church and school were willing to put up with
me butchering their language and kept an open mind when I just tried the same
context with different words and lots of non-ASL approved sign language.
Overall, I loved my time in Budapest—both the tourist bits
and the teaching. I got a lot of new
Facebook friends who post things in Hungarian that makes me think, “I really
need to start learning this language.”
And, I’ve got hundreds of pictures to share (some of which are sitting
on my computer waiting to be posted). I
hope to go back…a wish I hold for all of the countries I’ve visited.
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