halfway through!

                                        my course mates and the students we have been teaching

I'm halfway through my month-long course! Some people have been asking what my course is about. Well, it's to prepare me to teach English to people who didn't grow up speaking the language...so their English is worse than all of you! Ha, I've got to learn how to give instructions more simply and slowly, and to explain things with more gestures and simpler language. I've also been learning how to be more encouraging...trying to say 'great!', 'good job!', 'excellent!' Haha, you know how difficult this is for me since I'm more used to 'not bad', 'not really'....

I have teaching practices in the afternoons and have been teaching an intermediate class the past 2 weeks. It was a very fun class 'cos their language ability is not too bad and they are very willing to speak up. They come from all over the world...Korea, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, France... with different backgrounds. Some are retired teachers and principals, others are people on working visas to try to earn extra cash, and others are like me, travelling to see the world! So it's fun when they do discussions and give opinions from their own experiences. Guess, that's what I'm looking for in taking this course and hopefully to teach these people - the chance to get to know different cultures.

I've only got 3 other classmates, but it's interesting studying with the 'ang mohs'. It's time like this that I'm thankful for the rigour we've been put through in school....having regular homework is nothing new and something we can cope with pretty well. For some of them, they are pretty stressed out with the work and sleeping very little 'cos they are not used to it. So there's value in our education system after all!  

Am going to start teaching a beginner's class next week. That's gonna be a whole new challenge altogether. Hope it'll go well!