I Met my Class Friday--Finally!

Sitting outside the Herna Nonstop, or as we say, Hernia Nonstop. Ha Ha. Enjoying the sunshine--almost forgot what it was like. Herna means Casino in Czech for those keeping score. They are everywhere. Usually it's just a bunch of slot machines. The one across the street from our apartment has a nice cafe and outdoor patio, so we decided to have a pivo in the sun!

I met my class yesterday--finally. For a 2 month trip, I'm not going to have many responsibilities here. 4 hours yesterday, 4 hours next Friday, and then a couple lecture in Krakow. My class consists of  9 Euroculture masters students, 6 of whom were in class yesterday. We were scheduled to begin at 9:00. We actually got started at 9:30 when 4 of them showed up--not bad. But we hung around longer than the scheduled ending time--they stiill wanted to talk. Imagine American students wanting to stay longer? Not really.

So, I'm teaching on intercultural communication as part of their required Eurocompetence course. Me--teaching intercultural communication to a group of students who have been doing intercultural communication since last September. They all speak English--the language of the program--and travel to a new Euroculture university each semester. They told me I would meet a couple students in Krakow who will be in Indiana next.

Meet my students, so far: Jessica from France who has already studied in Prague for a year. Felina from Belarus, Oresta from the Ukraine who has already sent me a draft of her thesis proposal for comment. She is the social coordinator of the group. Antonina from Poland, who is probably the most academically serious of the group. She is very insightful in her observations and isn't afriad to disagree with her colleagues. Nicola is from Italy--the only male in the class and unfortunately his English is the weakest. He doesn't seem to be able to follow along. And Aditi from India who is probably the most respectful of the group. Not that the rest aren't, but when I gave them a break, she wanted to know if she could bring me a coffee. They all thanked me afterward and I received an email of thanks too. Imagine.

So, we had a good discussion yesterday--they called it "guided talk." I had an outline prepared but we ended up skipping around because of where their comments took us. So they laughed at my overplanning and thanked me for allowing them to participate in "guided talk." I'm looking forward to our next "guided talk" next week.