This was my first week of Estonian school so I thought I’d
sum it up as best I can. The first day was just an assembly and then meeting
our class. Walking through the hallways
and hearing everyone talking but not understanding a word made me decide that I
need to learn Estonian . . . and fast. It’s like the voices are on a distant
radio turned down really softly so that the speaking can be heard but none of
it makes sense because it’s too hard to hear.
My first full day of school went something like this, each
class I sat in but didn’t understand what the teacher was saying, luckily the
students can speak English so I had some translations. I tried really hard in
each class to listen to what the teacher was saying and try piece things
together. Sometimes I could figure out what a teacher wanted us to do but
mostly I sat clueless. In chemistry I sat and tried to remember the names of
some of the symbols on the giant periodic table on the wall. During the day I
listen to how the students and teachers talk and how they pronounce words. I
can sometimes pick up words that I’ve learnt like: sleep, lunch, chair, different
colours and numbers. I ask how to say some sentences but I find that at the end
of most days my brain just switches off and I can’t take in any new words.
The subjects I’m studying for the first five weeks are:
Estonian, English, Russian, French, Chemistry, Film,
Maths and Music
So after five weeks these will change and then after five
weeks those will change and so on.
For Estonian classes I’m in the 3rd grade with
the little kids. They dress very colourfully and are always bouncing up and
down and chatting non-stop. It’s easier to understand the teacher in the
younger classes though and I’m starting to pick up sentences.
So on Thursday I had
my first film lessons! We have a small class of about 15 students. We spoke a
bit about the history of film (it was translated to me of course) and a bit
about what we will be doing during the lessons. Making films, editing, watching
and analyzing a lot of different movies, we get to visit some production studio
etc. We then watched a short 9 minute ‘shocking’ video. Basically the whole
think was suspense and right at the end someone gets hit by a car and someone
else gets an injection stuck in their eye . . . don’t actually know why we
watched it but yes. We were given some papers with information IN ENGLISH so I can understand
them luckily. The teacher let us out early so we had a shorter day. I have four
film lessons every Thursday.
For English I have to give a 35 to 40minute presentation
because I’m English. And I thought that three minute speech in NZ was bad . . .
I will be doing it on New Zealand because the teacher said the only thing they
know about NZ is that it was close to Australia.
Some interesting things about my school
- · Firstly the bell. Here the bell isn’t an annoying ring, it’s a speaker that plays music in the hallways signaling that it’s time to head to class, then again when class begins and ends.
- · When coming into school in the mornings everyone goes downstairs to a big room, called a wardrobe, where we leave our jackets and shoes for the day. In the mornings we arrive at school and change our shoes, then when our lessons are over we change back into our other shoes and leave the school ones in the wardrobe.
- · We don’t have a set starting and finishing time. For example from Monday to Wednesday I start at 8, have 6 lessons and finish at 2. Thursdays I start at 9 and finish at 4. Fridays I only have three lessons, I start at 9 and finish at 12.
- · We have a cafeteria, so when it’s lunch time everyone rushes to get some food and a place to sit. The coolest thing there is a machine where you can get a glass of milk, it’s like those hot chocolate machines but you get milk. A girl today joked with me “It’s like our school has a cow
- There are lockers but we have to pay for them
- And no we don't have a uniform
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