Almost summer break 110 exams to go

A short movie by Rob. 

http://youtu.be/a9hpj4A-h-w

 He says that I have not exaggerated about anything really -the fog, -the roads, although he does not really see the mould as a problem.  It really is not that awful I guess.  However tonight I took out my luggage and it was green and yellow and mouldy.   It all brushed off and Rob made the comment that I should get one of the face masks the kids wear when they are sick for my housecleaning. 


My alternative to Safeway: 

Fresh veggies

Everything else 

Exams and summer break

Today my students write their second exam.   I will have 120 papers to mark - about 20 hours at least. . . 

Guess that will be an extra piece of luggage. 

Rob and I will be going to Bumthang (not a city) and staying at the River Lodge with the BCF teachers for 3 days.  AFter that . .  explore Bumthang, then back to Paro to put him on the plane on the 8th.  

Am already feeling lost without him.  :( 

A movie

Rob created a short movie of our day in Wangchu and the party at my place on Saturday evening.  It can be found at : 

http://youtu.be/dI0gBJrlBzU

NEW LINK  LAST 1 DID NOT WORK:)

http://youtu.be/dI0gBJrlBzU

TIME AND TIDE WAIT FOR NO MAN

Each morning teachers sign in in the principal's office.  I was flipping through to find my page and saw May, April, March, February slip by.  Where have the months gone?  Agonizingly slowly they passed by as I was struggling to adjust.  Now they seem to have evaporated. 

At home the months and seasons have markers for me.  The lilac tree, snow melting and familiar school holidays.  Here all is new.  My markers are election holidays, Lord Buddha's Parinirvana, and Guru Rinpoche's birthday.  

Of course a memorable marker of time will be Rob's visit.  He has already been here a week.  On Sunday we traveled to Wangchu with Namkha, fellow teacher and archer.  Archery is Bhutan's national sport and they play with expensive compound bows.  The targets are tiny and they are shooting 145 metres. We walked to a picnic site at the river which is raging brown with monsoon waters.  I had not noticed the "beware of snakes" sign on my previous visit with Dave.  Rob and Namkha saw a large cobra cross the road later in the day. 

Compound - target is between red flags tine

The river valley was hot and  muggy.  We walked up towards the Lakhang (temple) built on an old Dzong site they uncovered while excavating for the dam.  I had found drawings of the dzong in 1783, in a great old book I discovered in the library.  The book contains diary excerpts and sketches by Samuel Davis, a cartographer on an Indian/English trade exploration to Bhutan.  He was a talented artist and the drawings are fascinating.  Walking up we came across traditional archery being played with bamboo bows and arrows.  A significantly larger amount of local ara was being consumed at the match.  The shooting distance is about the same, less hits on the target, due to either a lack of accuracy or perhaps ara. 

Traditional - you can see the target behind the middle man

Wangchu is labeled Chukha on many maps and is in the valley bottom at 1650 metres above sea level.  Tsimilakha is on google earth at an elevation of 2350m.  The drive is about 14 to 16 kilometres, crisscrossing the mountainside.  Wangchu village sits almost directly below Tsimilakha and you can peer down at it from our school picnic grounds.  

Zangdopelri Lakhang

Wangchu views

EXAMS PART II

Day I    

Brand new horse in my "driveway"

Rob and I go for a morning walk at 6:30 am  where we meet many students walking, notebooks open, choral chanting their notes.  

"Morning Ma'am.  Doubt ma'am."  

I am asked to explain n a feature of language.  Most students are studying the questions from past exam papers. 

These exams are high stake as there are not enough seats in classes 11 and 12, so only the top students qualify.  Exams count for 80% of the mark. 

My students write their English 1 first day. I spend the 3 hours going from room to room (the students are spread out) answering doubts.  I'm very happy to be allowed to help them with their questions.  My students finish 1 hour early!!  It takes them two 55 minute classes to write an essay.  How have they managed the entire paper in 2 hours?  We discuss answers in detail and they tell me the exam was easy . .. or easy and hard.  I ask if I will enjoy reading their essays or if they have vomited their words onto the page. (vomit- a word I use teaching essay writing) 

Day II 

Students walking the streets at 5:15am, chanting their notes 

Observations: 

•During my supervision a teacher dropped off little bits of string??? I had to unravel the string and give pieces to the students.  They poke a hole in their paper and tie the pages together. 

•I get a large plastic bag and key to the room where I supervise.  The bag has the exams (exact numbers) and answer sheets with an official ministry stamp on them. 

•I return the completed exams, all in order, by roll number and sign them in. 

•I count and sign for every paper that I have to mark

•I sign every sheet of used paper in my exam room

•Principal drops in and scolds a student for having his hair too long

•Teachers on exam duty get phone calls. . . and answer them 

Me in the morning

 . .. . there is no relief for supervisors. 

EXAMS PART I

Here I sit on exam duty.  I am supervising 32 quiet students who are writing their 3 hour long Dzongkha I or English I paper.  In language classes students write two 3 hour papers.  In English 9 the first paper is 350 word expository essay, a business letter, 10 marks on the Nature of Language and 30 marks of grammar questions.  Next week they will write their literature paper.  Four sections of 20 marks each:  short story, novel, essay and poetry.  Both the short story and novel they have already studied, the other two are unseen. 

In class 9 the question papers are written by the teacher.  Grade 10 and 12 have ministry exams at the end of the school year.  I believe there are ministry exams in class 6 also.  I had past exams to use as models and found myself very much sticking to the model and teaching to the exam.  The one change I think I may have introduced was to ask students to understand what they have memorized.  For example the Nature of Language the students have memorized:  "Language is a systematic means of communication by using words, conventional signs and symbols."  They even have actions to go with it.  On the quiz I gave, students were shocked to lose marks when they substituted convectional of conventional. uh oh . . .  they need to understand and be able to explain it to me, relating the definition to the purposes of language (which they have also memorized).  

I will see see if they have succeeded when I mark their papers.