Teaching in Bulgaria

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It's my first time teaching English as a second language and there are some trials and tribulations mostly the language barrier of not yet being fluent in Bulgarian. Thus, the need for pictoral representations is even further stressed, as if it wasn't already with the younger kids. The problem here however is that Bulgarians in general, and yes, I am stereotyping here, are terrible drawers. Pictionary is a sure flop every time and I have yet to learn that lesson. The biggest obtacle in all seriousness is the presence of multi-leveled classes, where there are, at least in my training site, two or three studens that are up to speed with the textbook whereas the others ae completely lost. Furthermore, phrases like "have you got a rubber" from their awful British textbooks does not ameliorate the situation. There are also textbooks that talk excessively about robots and beta carotene - in other words, the textbooks rarely teach anything useful to the students. I enjoy teaching however, because even if the kids do not understand a single word, they will pay close attention to everything you say. This may be the fact that right now I am a novel character - the American, the first they have ever met and Bulgarians generally love those from my motherland. Maybe one day the novelty will wear off.

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