First Day of Class!

Today was the first day of classes for the summer, and I think it went pretty well. Since I hadn't expected to be teaching this summer, and had only made arrangements to tutor in the writing center, I wasn't expecting to work this week. However, I was invited to teach an ESL (English as a Second Language) class at the last minute, so I had to do a little bit of rearranging to my summer snooze schedule. I'm really glad that I did though--my new class is going to be a lot of fun! It's definitely going to be worth giving up some nap-by-the-pool time to teach my new students.

I have a very enthusiastic group of students this summer, who were willing to participate right from the beginning. They seemed to enjoy the first day introduction activities I had ready for them, and there were lots of giggles and grins. They were very appreciative when I explained exactly why we wouldn't be holding class next Wednesday. They'd all heard about the 4th of July being a holiday, but they didn't know exactly what made it a holiday, so we started out with a brief lesson in American history. I was very happy I'd just refreshed my memory for my Career Link students' unit on government this spring!

I was a little bit worried this morning about starting to teach a class for which I hadn't even seen a book or a class roster, so I got to campus early and peeked at the book in the campus bookstore, and was very relieved to find that it is a very small book, primarily containing conversation starters and vocabulary practice. It won't take me too long to catch up. I think I'll be able to manage to stay a couple days ahead of my students! Fortunately for me, it sounds like most of them signed up for the class because they want a fun summer class. I can do fun. The majority of them want to work on their conversational English, and I think we'll be able to find plenty of things to talk about.

My students this summer are from all over Asia, it seems. So far, I know I have students from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam. There was a bit of confusion about classrooms this morning, so I've only met about half the class. I'm expecting to expand the international mix even more in the next couple of days. I'm looking forward to a great summer!