First Day

So I had my first day of classes yesterday, and it was quite interesting. I actually only had one class. But that was enough for the first day. I taught my youngest students, 8th graders. They seem like they will be a lot of fun this year and I am excited about teaching them. One thing I did realize though, was that they don't really so much speak that great of English. Funny story. So I had them all tell what they did over summer holidays. Croatia is a big hot spot for Czechs, so many of them went there. But several upon several of them said they went to "sunny camp". Now, as you can imagine. Running through my head is... "what the hell is 'sunny camp'". So, I tried to use my own brain, and I translated this as summer camp. So, I feel like this could be a good topic to talk about. I said, "So, many of you all went to "summer camp". What is it that you do at summer camp". I got all blank stares, and weird looks. Until one of them finally says to me, "No, not summer camp, sunny camp". Hm... I see. Come to find out, sunny camp can be roughly translated into real English as TANNING. So that kinda sucked. Yea, this class was all but two girls, so stereotypes are the same there still there with the whole sunbathing thing. I can tell that this class may be more tough than I assumed. More interesting errors I came across as teaching. Um... I told them they couldn't have cell phones, yet I received a text message during class. When I asked them what they liked to do, one girl responded, "Martin". I figure she meant she liked to hang out with Martin. Their English blows. Other of the 14 year olds answered that question with "beer". Yea, the drinking age of 18 isn't enforced. And I definitely used the word "whatnot" during class. How can they understand "whatnot" if they don't even understand "excited". Oh yes, last one. When I asked them if they like America, they responded with adament "no's". When asked why, they respond with one word... McDonalds. Ladies and Gentlemen, I leave you with that. McDonalds has proven to be the impervious psyche of what is known today as "America the Beautiful". Stay sassy America.