My turn to be a trainee instead of a trainer.
Yesterday was my first day of Dutch school. I was planning on bringing my laptop but I wanted to see first how the "environment" was. I didn't want to seem too geeky or intimidating. hehehe so I just brought with me a pad...and my barbie doll pencilcase (don't ask).
Well, there were 12 of us in the class. Some coming from Turkey, Russia, Italy, USA, Tunisia, Thailand, France, Peru, and ofcourse, one delegate from the Philippines. It was quite interesting actually...just like a mini United Nations thing. Next thing you know we'll be discussing world cultures and stuff like that. ;P
Maybe once a trainer always a trainer. The moment the introductions started I wrote down my co-trainees' names and where they were from. haha I noted that our trainer didn't do that so during the course of the class, she had to ask for our names over and over again and only called on those whose names she remembered. Apparently, with a bit of bitterness, she found it hard to remember my name and my Thai seatmate's name: May. Duh? :)
At the end of the 3 hour session I had a nasty headache. I dunno if it was because our trainer spoke in Dutch all the time and gave me the impression that she did not really have a very good command of the English language, coz seriously, she would just speak in Dutch ALL THE TIME. Yeah, she would translate a word or two in English every 30mins or so but jeez! You should have seen the look on our faces. My Thai seatmate on the left was like: "Wha doo wee doo agehn? Wha dus dah mean? I dow undahstan..." and my French seatmate to my right just had a blank look on her face and just spoke French most of the time coz even English she wasn't very good at. I would ask her every now and then if she was okay and she just had this pained look on her well made face. But I think I pity the Spanish girl the most coz all she kept saying was: Nee comprende. I agree, it was very difficult to internalize things if all you focus on are her actions and try to make sense of the words through her gestures.
But then again, that is still Day 1. Maybe I'm just used to Pimsleur (www.pimsleur.com) that translates everything in English and explains a bit about Dutch grammar rules. And repetition is very essential.
Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that the 3 Americans, well one in particular who resembled Jack Black a lot, were just so annoying. Maybe it's because my competitive mode button was turned on. He just kept on participating and pronouncing words incorrectly like English for example. In Dutch English is "Engels" pronounced "Eh-nguls" but they just kept on pronouncing it as "Eng-gulls". Well, the Tagalog might pronounce it as "Eng-gel" or Visayans as "Eng-gol" haha but that's another story. ;P
The trainer was not also very particular with pronunciation. Tsk tsk tsk. Even after mispronouncing English she would still say "Prima!" which means "Perfect". :)
But then again, I should always think that it was still Day 1. They say that in learning a language, "immersion" is the key. So I will stop writing now (more like whining actually) and start with home study so I get a heads up...just don't tell them that. *wink*
P.S. I was the only one in class wearing 3 layers of clothing. So embarassing. ;P
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