I had my tenth and final Saturday English class last weekend. They took their final for the first hour and then watched "October Sky" while I graded their tests. I baked brownies and served them with tea for a sort of celebration. While some of them were apprehensive about eating something that I had prepared (totally unjustified), I had the same feeling about grading their exams. Throughout the module, the majority of the class was quite motivated while some of the students did not take the class as seriously as I would have liked. To my surprise, there was a pretty good "bell curve." I would even venture to say that the students demonstrated having learned something. What a pleasant result for forfeiting my Saturday mornings to teach.
"October Sky" is your typical, feel-good American movie and I was a bit nervous that the students wouldn't like it. I have read a few Russian novels and heard about many Russian movies. I have come to the conclusion that most don't have a happy ending. I went to class wondering if they would appreciate the movie, or would even understand what was going on (we left the English subtitles on for their benefit). They seemed to understand and some of them even got a little teary at the end. Two of the students even said that the movie was "klahs" (which I think is the Russian equivalent of "cool").
-Dave
