08/06/10

Yesterday a student approached me and asked if she could meet with me to discuss some problems she was having with math. I was completely taken aback that a student was seeking out extra help, but also extremely pleased. And unlike the few times prior when students have asked me for help on their assigned homework, she pointed out some topics she didn’t understand and we worked through a bunch of practice problems together. I am still a little shell-shocked that this happened, but I just keep reminding myself that this is a wonderful thing. On the other hand, my student who can’t read or write with whom I am supposed to meet with every day after classes for 30 minutes continues to sneak away from school whenever possible, so we end up having a lesson about once a week.
In English when asked, for example, if you didn’t do your homework and in fact you did not, you respond, “no, I didn’t.” But in Portuguese (or at least Mozambican Portuguese) you respond, “yes, I didn’t.” This is confusing. In class today I had a completely awful exchange with my students that went something like this: “So you guys didn’t have homework yesterday?” “Yes.” “Oh so you did?” “No.” “Wait did you or not?” “We did not.” “So you didn’t have homework.” “Yes, we didn’t.”