Sunday, June 8, 2008

My language tutors "mediators"

Here are my language tutors in Mastacani, they were for the last month, and I don't know if they'll stay my tutors for my whole 2 years.

This first person is Lili and she's a teacher for 1st year students (6 year olds) and she's all about rock music, English movies, and she has a (ex-)rocker boyfriend who rides a motorcycle. She's also interested in Chinese culture too, so it's fun to talk to someone so interested in US pop culture and Asian culture. She's only a bit older than me and I have tutoring with her 2ice a week for 2 hour sessions.

This next person is Mihaela and at first I got the impression that she was a very serious person, and maybe even cold. However, after the initial meet she's very smart, and she is serious, but she has a giant heart and she wants all her students to do well (me included). She graduated with a degree in Romania, and while I think she could be a CEO of a company, she teaches kids from 5th grade to 8th grade Romanian. She invited me over to her home for her 3 year old's birthday party last week. My words: she's beautiful, her husbands beautiful, her kid is adorable, and their home is amazing. Her house = modern and classical and I loved it! She is a great host, and always the teacher teaching and correcting me while I try to communicate (she doesn't speak any English) but in the sweetest way. It makes me wish she got paid more for how hard she tries (like in the US, teachers make squat here). She's a perfectionist and the straight 10 student growing up (Romanian grades are 1-10 versus F-A). I get tutored by her 40 mins every day before she teaches class.

This lady on the left is Sorina, and she's not an official tutor, but she likes to explain words and grammer stuff to me sometimes. She doesn't have a lot of time to tutor me. She's the profesoara of English and French while the real teacher at this school is on Maternity leave (women get a 2 year leave here). She's let me help in her English classes, reading and answering questions. She wants to improve her English speaking skills and I am happy to oblige because I enjoy talking to her too. She's a book lover too, and she said she likes classical books, so I'm on a mini quest to find not too difficult classical books for her. She is most likely not teaching in this comuna next year, and she doesn't have internet, so I'll probably not see her after this school year. =(

They're becoming friends, my tutors, and thankfully they take the task of teaching me Romanian very seriously during our tutoring sessions, which I really appreciate.

I'm only supposed to have 1 tutor, but I'm willing to learn from those who can teach me this language.

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