1 Book. 10 months for David. 11 months for me. 25 lessons. 244 pages. Aprox 5,000 new words.
Innumerable days we wanted to quit.
Finished.
Finally.
David sent out this picture when he finished his last lesson in the book :) When asked if he was fluent now, he responded: "Yes, I read the last word in the book and suddenly started thinking in Creole, had a long conversation using words I'd never heard! Or not." This pretty much sums it up :)
One day after a particularly challenging lesson, I decided to write out the experience to remember it someday. Here's my summary:
3:03 pm – Falens shows up for our Creole lesson.
3:03 pm – Cassia wakes up.
She is supposed to sleep until 3:30.
I know I need to feed her to keep her on schedule but I need to start my
lesson. So lets go.
3:04 pm – I get Falens a drink and sit on the couch, holding
Cassia on my lap.
3:05 pm – Falens prays to open our lesson. Cassia starts to eat my book. Orrin comes over and messes with my book too.
3:08 pm – I put Cassia down on the floor to play and we
start the lesson again.
Orrin jumps on the couch and crawls behind my head. I tell him to stop and read his books on the
couch. He wants snacks for putting his other books away. I bring him two snacks.
3:15 pm – Orrin pulls out a sticker book and rips out two pages. I pull stickers out and hand them to him to
put on the pages as I am reading Creole lesson.
Someone calls “Madam David” from outside and knocks on the door. I get up and answer the door. Come back and re-start lesson.
3:24 pm – Orrin pulls out the cushion from behind Cassia as she is
sitting on the floor. I tell him
no. He gets a spank in his room. I come back and start again.
3:31 pm – Orrin comes back and jumps on the couch. I say you can read your books on the couch or
do Blanket Time. We get the blanket,
toys, and snacks. He is bawling because I put the blanket in the
wrong spot and he doesn’t want fruit snacks.
3:33 pm – I get up from my lesson again and get him a different
snack. I take the fruit snacks and eat
them. He screams because he wants his
fruit snacks. I give him the fruit snacks
to make him be quiet and then go back to the couch to ask a few questions about
the words I hadn’t understood.
3:37 pm – Cassia has gotten on her belly and moved to the corner of
the rug. She is eating the tag on the
underside of the rug. Falens asks if she
should be eating it since it’s dirty. So
I get up and put her in a sitting position.
She screams bloody murder and huge tears roll down her face. I pick her up. She’s trying to eat my shirt. I go get a blanket and attempt to nurse. I ask Falens to read the next part since she
won’t nurse if I’m talking. He says he
needs to hear me read. Nursing doesn’t
work, so we give up and I close my book.
Cassia is red-faced and screaming.
I tell Falens this isn’t working today.
We talk a little and then he gets up to go. It’s 3:47.
We read two pages. When will I
learn Creole? Certainly not during my
lesson times.
From here on, we'll take a break from books and continue with a lesson a week where we have conversations in Creole to help with comprehension, listening, and vocab. Usually unstructured conversation lessons go better with the kiddos.
Sometimes things go good during conversations, and you feel like you may actually be getting it. Then other days you're totally lost. And then sometimes people throw in French words when they're speaking...and that totally throws me for a loop! Two Sundays ago, it seemed like we understood most of the sermon without using the translator. Then last Sunday I didn't get a thing. I asked Falens and he said the pastor spoke mostly in French that sermon. Sigh. Guess we'll have to learn French when we're fluent in Creole ;)
