Settling in

I've been in Abu Dhabi for over a month now (so hard to believe!) and have started to settle into my school and with my two classes of third grade girls, am on my last few days at the Intercontinental Hotel, got my apartment keys, bought furniture (after hopping a concrete sky high mental block) and have formed a family of close friends from around the world. My mind is slowing making the switch from visiting this country to living here.

My school days begin at 7:25 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. And yes, it is difficult getting used to rising for work on a Sunday morning and calling Thursday your end of the week. I just spoke to my sister this morning and it is Saturday morning for me and Friday night for her. My weekend is ending, while hers is just beginning.

I report to the gym every morning for assembly. I line up behind my morning class (one day it is 3E and the next it is 3F) while they recite and sing in Arabic and do a school dance. The entire school is present for these daily assemblies and we are dismissed class by class. We walk to our classroom (our school is like a big square with the hallways outside and the classrooms inside around the border) and my girls line up outside the room next to their lockers with their homework and notes (Inshallah), while I greet each one by shaking their hands and wishing each other good morning. "Good morning, Ms. Kaitlin."

I write a daily message to them on the whiteboard, although they are all not yet to the point of being able to read and understand what I mean. They work on bellwork of some sort (practicing writing their name and father's name in English, single digit addition and subtraction problems) while I collect homework and give stickers for those who finished and brought it back to class. We pass out nametags and go back to the carpet for calendar time. We do a lot of listen and repeat and hand motions during this time to help them remember what the vocabulary means.

Questions my girls came up with for me to answer.

I have three 45-minute periods with each class of girls, where we touch on English, math and science. The time goes so quickly and before you know it, it's break time (my morning is scheduled like this: period 1, period 2, break, period 3 and my afternoon is scheduled like this: period 5, break, period 6, period 7) or time to say goodbye to one group for the day. There is no scheduled lunch break in the middle of the day. The girls use their morning break to eat lunch and I use my period 4 prep to eat (sometimes). They bring a lot of bread with chocolate spread, and Capri Suns. The canteen sells bags of popcorn, so everyone who can spare a dew dirhams has a bag of popcorn in their hands and you find kernels all over the halls.

My two groups of girls are very well behaved (albeit chatty - I have determined this to be a cultural norm) and most understand and can speak English quite well. However, don't let me lead you astray. There are a handful in each class that give me blank stares quite often. I find myself acting quite a bit in class -- many hand gestures, drawings and speaking animatedly to get my point across. I fall into my bed exhausted each night. When I feel frustrated that my girls can't understand me, I think of myself in an all Arabic classroom and remind myself how lost I would be.

We have quite a big staff -- many Arabic teachers and English Medium teachers from Ireland, South Africa, United States, Australia/New Zealand and Canada. The families we teach are middle class, and my girls arrive each day in pink and white uniforms. The girls are friendly and in general have a good attitude toward learning English. They all tell me it's their favorite part of the day. I must be doing something right! There is much chaos, but I'm trying to find my footing slowly but surely. I want to be as effective with my students as I can. Each day gets better.