English lesson, the second.

Tuesday + Wednesday, November 19th + 20th

8:00 am. After jogging and breakfast with the girls, I meet Sophia at Manara Bookshop in Weibdeh. Sitting in the warm afternoon sun on the terrace of Manara, we prepare our English lesson for Tarabot - tomorrow is the day. After we finish, Arabic lesson at the university, then a short break, our lecture.

Dr. Rawan, our lecturer, is not here, so we are alone with our guest lecturer today. Her name is Jud and she works at the research institute where Clara is doing her internship. She presents to us today the body mapping as a research method in working with children, which coincidentally fits very well with our sound activity that we will do on Monday at Tarabot. Here too, the aim is to become more aware of one's own body by drawing a silhouette of a child and then focusing on the different parts of the body. Apart from the physical aspect, the different senses of the children are also examined based on the body parts, as well as the environment in which they move. This is achieved through questions that are asked to the children, such as where the child would move, what thoughts occupy its mind, what it likes to do in its free time, etc.

After Jud presents the research method to us, we are supposed to perform the body mapping in groups ourselves, with a fictional children's figure and assuming that we are research participants of the same age. We draw Ahmad, a boy who lives here in Amman and has various challenges in his everyday life to overcome. It's not easy to put oneself in such a person and situation. But at least we get an idea of how such a research method could work with children. And of course, Ahmad's silhouette is also an artistic achievement.

6:30 am. Unlike last week, I get up early enough today to be on time at Tarabot and prepare our English lesson in peace. And today it's the children who are late because of the rush hour in the morning, so we can really take our time with the preparation. Sophia and I have managed to get Tarabot to buy a license for a website that provides access to a wealth of worksheets, songs, and many other English materials. With the new login data, we can also download more songs and song lyrics to welcome the children.

After Samer once again strongly recommended us to alternate between placing girls and boys in order to bring more peace into the classroom, this is no longer necessary: Dr. Amina's daughter is offering a math course in the adjacent room at the same time as our English course, in which some of our students from last week are now participating. So our class has now shrunk from 18 to 9 students, and that really makes a huge difference: there isn't even a single interruption today, so Sophia, Samer as the translator, and I can enjoy the undivided attention of the kids.

And everything is going unusually according to plan: the children are reading all the words and sentences that we introduce to them with concentration, singing the songs loudly, and writing everything neatly in their notebooks and blocks that they brought with them again today. The games we prepared are also well received, so at 11 o'clock when the lesson is actually supposed to be over according to the plan, an unusual situation occurs: the children don't want to leave the classroom. So Sophia and I can cover additional material until the children's teacher finally comes to our class and takes everyone with her. Today we are really receiving positive feedback for our teaching from almost all sides.

... from almost all sides. Dr. Amina tells us that the children in the neighboring math course complained when the loud music reached their classroom and said that they also want to go to the "fun class". So from next week, we have a ban on speakers. But we can live with that. Now we first get a chicken burger and juice boxes from Fuad and can take a little break.

In the afternoon, Clara comes to visit us at Tarabot to discuss our activity on Monday together with Fuad and Kemo. We are promised all the materials we need, and otherwise the two seem to be satisfied with our plan. We are really looking forward to see how everything will go.

When we finish our internship day around 3 o'clock today, Sophia and I agree: before we go home, we make a stop at Abu Wahid. We haven't been there for a good week and we miss his food painfully. It really makes a difference in the quality of life, as Sophia rightly observes. With Abu Wahid's hummus, life simply makes much more sense. After indulging in the taste paradise for half an hour, I make my way back to Manara. I will definitely spend several hours here in the next few days.