Language training at Dili Technical Institute

Everyone drives a motorbike. No cars.
This was our bathroom at the school. The toilet did not work so you had to dip the blue pot into the water and poured into the toilet to flush it.
A goat by our bus stop
There was a bank branch on campus. Like all banks on the island they always have huge lines.
This is a picture of the campus with classrooms
To get home we had to walk about a half a mile out to the main road. Then we could either take a taxi or a microlet. The microlet is a little bus that costs $0.25. They're usually very crowded. When you want to stop you tap your coin on the handrail and the driver can hear you. The bus isn't more than a big van.

We spent this week attending the Dili Institute of Technology language training class. The class went for 4 hours each morning for the week. We are learning a language called tetun. It was a small classroom with only Cheryl and I as students with a teacher..

The course was very hard. It's been a long time since I've been in school and even longer since I had a language course. It was a frustrating experience. It was so hard to memorize the vocabulary words and then recall them during the class. It was hard to develop sentences and use things in context. The four hour class each day seem like 4 days. Then at night we needed to study for a couple hours. We made flashcards.

When we finished the week I'm not sure I knew much more than when I started. It's going to take a lot of practice and additional study to get the language down. Now I remember why I did so poor in French class in high school.






Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 22, 2017 at 9:30 AM

    Will you be able to survive without knowing the language?

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 22, 2017 at 10:12 AM

    We're proud of you, Trapanis! Flashcards sound like a great idea!

    ReplyDelete

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