Host City Day 4: Public Speaking and Co-Teaching

April 25--

Today, we had the extraordinary experience of participating on the jury for a public speaking competition and co-teaching with Hicham.  It was a day of firsts for me.  First time on a jury for a public speaking competition and first time teaching outside the US.  Indeed, a day for the books.

But first (and again), here's a photo of the amazing sunrise outside my hotel room.  Apparently it's too hard to sleep when there is so much to see!

After this spectacular sunrise, it was time for school.  Hicham picked us up at the hotel and we headed to our next school visit.  After a school tour, we got set up and ready to judge a roomful of eager student speakers.

After all of the competitors presented their persuasive speeches, I was tapped to say a few words to all of the students and to acknowledge their hard work.  It wasn't hard to find the words, since the students truly put in maximum effort, enthusiasm, and work in preparation for this competition.  Many of the students even memorized their entire speeches!  After the competition, I even got to meet and take photos with some of the student competitors.

After this very successful morning visit, we took a short break and I prepared a lesson to teach for the afternoon.  Exciting moments in store - my first real teaching experience in Morocco!  I decided to share my students' book "This is Pioneer" and teach a lesson using my students' photos to introduce American culture to Moroccan high school students.  I also planned to teach them how to write a letter to my students using sentence stems.  Without projectors, computers, and slideshows, it felt like I was stepping back into my earlier days of teaching  - just a whiteboard, some books with text and image, and pencil and paper.  It felt refreshing, but also a bit challenging since we have become so accustomed to teaching with technology each day.  Luckily, the student were excited to learn about my students and their high school experience.  We talked about what high school students in America like to do and compared it to what it is like to be a student in Morocco.  It was great fun to feel like I was connecting students in Ann Arbor to students in Fès, even if they couldn't do it in the moment.

In all, it was uplifting to connect with and see that teaching students in a classroom thousands of miles away isn't all that different at its core - we are all just looking to share language, connect with others, and learn about the world and how to make it just a little bit smaller.