English Class Entertainment

Greetings, everyone!

Hello from the hottest place on Earth.  Literally.  At least, it feels like it anyway:).  We’re in the middle of what the locals are calling a “heat wave.”  If you live on the Equator and it’s called a heatwave, you know it’s hot!  The temperature has been about 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the past few days–let’s hope for some rain to cool things down:).  If not, it’s alright–we’re headed to India in a week anyway.  I’m sure it will be much cooler there–yeah right!!!!!!!

Things are going quite well here.  John is doing wonderfully at work and I am in full swing studying for finals (I have one on Saturday morning and another on Monday afternoon of next week.)  Once those are finished, I’ve finished half of my Master’s Degree!  Yay!!!!:)  Other than that, life is pretty normal here.  We’re trying new foods, new places, making new friends, etc.  Oh, I did cook tonight–we had breakfast for dinner.  You can imagine how hilarious it was when I pulled an egg out of the carton and it still had a chicken feather attached.  I know that these eggs came from chickens but I did not want to be reminded.  I promptly washed off the eggs of the carton before refrigerating them–which they don’t do in the grocery stores.  If you can call this chain of events normal, then it’s been a pretty normal life since you’ve heard from us last:)

Now, onto some funny stories from English class!  I’ve mentioned before that I’m teaching an English as a Second Language class at church with my friend Yoshie.  We went to lunch with another friend, Hozumi, last week and started reminiscing and told our favorite stories.  Here are a selected few!

Yoshie and I teach an Introduction to English class.  This class is below a Level 1 class, basically meaning our students have had extremely limited exposure to English.  By limited, I mean on the first day, the lesson was how to say, “Hello, my name is…”.  Yoshie and I took over in January, so that lesson has already been given.  We took over in time for colors, body parts, and classroom words.  When you’re teaching introductory English in English, one of the best ways to teach vocabulary is to hold up an object, say what it’s called and have the class repeat.  For example, I would hold up a pencil and say “pencil.”  The class would repeat “pencil.”  This exercise continues until I’m satisfied with the pronunciation–which usually takes about twice.  My students are very bright:)  So, one day, we were going over vocabulary, I think I was holding up a shirt.  I said listen and repeat:  “shirt.”  They said “shirt.”  “Shirt.”  “Shirt.”  “Very good”  Very good.”  They imitated my compliment!  The funniest part was they had no idea that “very good” was a compliment and not another name for a shirt.  I then tried to explain–in a culture where a thumbs up motion means nothing–what good means.  I think they got it.  The next time they repeated a compliment–they all giggled.

I have sweet ladies from all over Asia in my class.  They hail from China, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Korea.  The only common language we have is English, which is lucky for me because it’s the only language I have.  So, like I mentioned earlier, I have to bring in items to demonstrate the vocabulary.  When it was clothing day, I wasn’t shy.  I brought in everything…including a bra, that happened to be hot pink.  When they finished laughing at how brightly colored the article of clothing was.  They learned how to say it.  “Bra.”  “Bra.”  “Bra.”  “Bra.”  The week before, we learned the words for family members:  husband, father, mother, brother, sister, wife, etc.  Trying to be a good teacher and connect the lessons I asked my class, “does my husband wear this?” and held up the bra.  The entire class nodded yes, very excitedly.  I then asked again–“does my husband wear this?” and waved the bright pink bra around?  When they realized what I asked they all doubled over laughing and said “No no teacher CB.”  haha….it’s easy for things to get lost in translation, but so so funny.  They were then amazed that I was so young and married.  We played the “guess CB’s age” game.  Most of the class guessed 17-20.  They were shocked when I told them I was 23.  They then wanted to know about babies.  Haha–no babies yet, not until thirty, I told them.  We then practiced our English numbers doing the math to see how many years that is:).  If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an English teacher–teach English when no one is looking!

I LOVE teaching my sweet ladies in English class.  I’m sure I have several more cute stories, but these are the ones I can remember now.  We’re having a potluck on Wednesday.  Try explaining the concept of potluck to women who barely speak English–we’ll see how many dishes we have.  I will keep you updated.

For now, I am off to bed.  I’m going to a Japanese Bible Study/Seminar on Western Niceities in the morning with my sweet friends Yoshie and Hozumi.  Need my beauty sleep!  Have a wonderful day back home–we’ll talk to you soon!!!!