Pearl, the teacher!

I have now been in Berlin for three and a half weeks. My first two weeks here have been so jammed packed with fun activities and new discoveries that I have to admit that I almost forgot that I was here to work as an English assistant!!! But that all changed on Monday, my first day at Judith-Kerr Grundschule.
I was warmly welcomed by all the teachers at the school, who all knew my name and where I was from, as they had been told of my arrival the week before. I even received a beautiful bouquet of flowers- talk about a good first day at work! Everyone was pretty excited by the fact that I come from Canada, and most particularly from Montreal, and I have already heard about the trips that a couple of the teachers have made to our beautiful city!!! This primary school is special because of the fact that it is a European school, which means that the students are taught half in German and half in French. This means of course that most of the teachers are also bilingual. I won't lie, it was so nice to speak French again, I have missed it!
The program requires me to work 12 hours a week, and the principal of the school was nice enough to organize my schedule so that I can have a long week-end. I will work three hours a day from Monday to Thursday and will have Friday off every week- not bad hey?!?! A long week-end will come in handy when I will want to travel a little.
I have now met most of the students that I will be working with. Students at this primary school start learning English as of the 5th grade, which means that they will only have received two years of English before they reach high school. The level of English of the fifth graders is really, really basic, but the sixth graders are actually pretty good, so I look forward to seeing the improvements the students in the fifth grade make over the next few months.
The students are all so very cute and nice. I was asked all the typical questions that kids ask a new person that comes to their classroom: how old are you? are you married? do you have kids? where are you from? what is your name?
The kids all write with fountain pens and have the most beautiful handwriting. They are all so eager to please and to learn. Finding a volunteer to come to the board or to answer a question is definitely not a problem with these kids- the moment the teacher asks a question, 20 hands go up in the air and all you hear is "Ich!" "Ich!" "Ich!" (me, me, me).
Classes are really small- there are no more that 22 students per class, which makes teaching, and learning, a much easier task.
I think I will very much enjoy working at this school. I look forward to getting to know the students better and try to help them learn English in a fun and exciting way.