August 17, 2009

First Class of the Fall Semester

A couple people clapped when I walked into the room, which I took as a good sign. Most of the thirty-five students in this morning's reading class are from the 33B class I taught last fall. Two are from 33G, the minority class I taught last year, and a couple others are from 33I, who had me for writing a couple years ago. I told them I wasn't sure whether they would be happy or sad to see me back. (Assuring them they will have less homework this time probably helped a little.) We got started with an article from the Japan Times and got further with it than I expected.

During the first class of the day, I observed a new ELI teacher who is practice teaching at the DAV as part of her training. She's an elementary teacher from Tennessee and did a great job transferring her skills to EFL. She and her husband leave Sunday to teach in Pakse, Laos. In fact, most of the new teachers this year (7 of 11) are headed to Laos. Only three will stay in Vietnam. We could use more - the DAV, where I teach, is down from five ELI teachers two years ago to three.

On the home front, I just got back from taking Nancy to the doctor. She's been having flu-like symptoms since Friday and we wanted to rule out H1N1. It's been ruled out. This early reminder that her immune system is not what it used to be turned out to be a bacterial infection. They gave her antibiotics and she should be back to normal soon.

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