Reconnecting in Banska Bytrica

We were invited to spend the weekend in Banska Bystrica by one of Gary’s students, Zuzana, from 2004. We went Saturday morning because we did not want to miss The Truth Project that we were watching and discussing in our Friday night Bible Study.

The train ride was foggy at first, but when we reached the hills, it was sunny and the hills were full of fall colors. The train station had some beautiful stain glass windows, representing towns from the areas around Banska Bystrica.

Zuzana and her family live in a two story house that used to be in a village, but is now in Banska Bystrica. There is a creek running on the opposite side of the road from the house.

Zuzana’s mother had a wonderful dinner waiting for us when we got there. Her mother does not speak English, but she had worked several years in Italy. With her Italian and Jeannine’s Spanish, they were able to visit some.

When we got to the center of town, on Saturday afternoon, the town was closed, except for the churches (for weddings), restaurants and some museums. Unfortunately, the museum Zuzana wanted to show us was closed. So we walked through the square towards what used to be a castle. Now it is a restaurant. Then we passed two large Roman Catholic churches. One was for the Germans and the other was for the Slovaks. We passed a large tower, which used to be one of the watchtowers for the town. Around it was a cemetery.



From there, we went to an ice cream stand with the “best ice cream in Slovakia.” The stand was at the edge of a large city park, which was by the river. We could see the beautiful hills surrounding the town.

We wanted to visit the museum that looks like a Slovak hat cut n half. (Or a mushroom with its top sliced off.) I remember seeing the building in 2004, but I mainly remembered graffiti on its sides. It does not have graffiti now. It is in memoriam of the 1944 Slovak rebellion against the Germans. It was not successful, but is something Zuzana’s countrymen are proud of. I believe the museum also has exhibits of the Communist era. It was going to be closed in a half hour, so we saw the artillery and tanks that were used in WWII and the rebellion. They were outside in an open air museum.



We went to church with Zuzana, even though she would be teaching Sunday School and would not be there to interpret for us. That was fine with us, since we go to church on all Sundays without an interpreter in Martin. Before we went into the sanctuary, we met a woman who began speaking to us in English, when she found out we spoke English. When she had to stop to think of a word, she mentioned she had to think of it in Spanish, first, then English. She had spent three years in Peru, doing missionary work. So she and Jeannine spoke some more in Spanish.

The church service was similar to the ones here in Martin. But after the sermon, the prayers of the people and the blessings, the young people from Sunday School came in and sang to us. They did not just sing one song; they sang for about ten minutes. The joy of the Lord shown on their faces. When they finished, the praise-band stayed in front of the church. We were told that they sing for about an hour after the service. We do enjoy singing, so we stayed in the church. (The pastor came in when he had changed out of his official robes and really got into the praise singing, also. When Zuzana came, she wondered if we were wanted to leave. We answered that we wanted to do what she wanted to do. Well, maybe one song. We stayed for almost the whole second hour.


Zuzana tried to show us another museum, but it was closed for lunch. So we went home to another wonderful dinner with duck and cabbage and an apple cake. We did get to see the museum in the center of town; it had been closed on Saturday. Then we caught the train and were back in Martin in an hour.


Although we did not see many museums, we so enjoyed just visiting with Zuzana and her mother. We have invited Zuzana to Martin for a weekend of “English practice.”

Teaching at Evanjelicka Základna Skola

I teach English in lessons following the Content Language Integrated Lessons (CLIL) format. This is method that is used all over Europe where teaching a new language. In CLIL lessons the content is more important than the language taught. The content may be geography, math or science. It is to be “real subjects applicable to real life.”

The day begins at 7:40. There is sharing time, followed by prayer time. This prayer time is mainly the students praying, with a small addition to the prayers by the teacher. Then each class has 45 minute classes followed by 10 minute breaks. In the breaks, the students can eat, have a drink, play one in the classroom, read, use the WC (water closet). The students get loud and rowdy in some classes, but there seems to be enough of a break that the students keep their attention on the following slesson. There seems to be no outside recess in the mornings.

In the second grade, I have been teaching the names of different fruit and vegetables. I began o with real fruit and vegetables. I introduce pictures and then names to be paired with the “real” examples. Then they get to color their paper with examples. We make our own Bingo cards and
Play Bingo. I like to have the students draw the fruit so they can have practice saying the names.
Here is a picture of some of the second graders on their break.


In the third grade we have been working in math. Specifically, we have worked on odd and even numbers, greater than and less than, and rounding up and down. We have practiced ordering numbers, saying if their number is greater than or less than their neighbor’s number and deciding how we “round numbers.” An interesting game we have played is to have a number put on their backs and they have to ask questions (that can be answered with yes or no) to see if they can discover their number.
This is the inside of a third grade classroom.
I like the idea of having nets on the wall to display work or decorations in place of using bulletin boards.

In the fourth grade we have been working with compass directions and maps. The classroom teacher teaches the students about Slovak geography, using maps. I taught about geography in California. We read a map of part of California, finding cities by following instructions that include compass directions. We made a map of California, with mountains, lakes, rivers, bay, ocean and cities. Then the students played a similar game with California locations on their back and they ask yes and no questions. I like this game because it gets the students to use the language rather than just hear it. The final activity with maps was to have a student tell three items about a location in CA and the others try to guess that location.

Fourth graders playing the “Yes-No Game”



As always, when I’m in a class with the students, I feel at home.