Crazy Eyes

Will Grace ever speak English properly?? No, probably not. Oh well. At least I'm more bold now about correcting her pronunciation. She needs to listen more carefully, though! When she's not pronouncing a word correctly she asks me to slow down. I do, but if I slow down too much the word doesn't sound natural.

After I finished with the adults I took my books, papers, and two combo CD/tape players into the video room to tape the listening tests. It took about 45 minutes, and when I came out Mr. Kim looked at me strangely. Sure my arms are full of stuff; I've been busy working! After lunch I went into the computer room to surf the net. As the kids entered the academy they greeted me. Many also came into the computer room to ask me what I was doing and look at the ENGLISH writing. "Oh wow, teacher! Good job! Good English!" Well I should hope so, it's my native language!! Mark came in a second time about 20-30 minutes after the first time (the 2 PM students often come at 1 PM and hang around school). He told me that if I looked at the computer for too long my eyes would go crazy. He meant blind, because he then closed his eyes, held out his arms in front of him, and stumbled about.

The first class did a lot better job about staying seated this class. They continue to volunteer enthusiastically to read, answer questions, or anything else. They have such good attitudes! If only I could replicate that and inject the middle school students with it. In the next class Lisa was passing out snacks again, which I made them wait to eat. (I think someone has too much spending money.) She was careful to make sure everyone got equal amounts, even if she didn't like the person very much. The 4 PM class was good once I got them settled down.

At 5 they are oh so very DENSE. Will someone put me out of my misery?! They weren't talking AT ALL. HELLO!!! Stacy's attitude is HORRIBLE. Because they were such lumps on logs I wrote the answers on the board so that all they had to do was copy them into their books. Stacy didn't even bother doing that. She just laid her head down on the desk. WAKE UP!

After that horrible class my slight headache had gotten much, much worse. I took some drugs then walked into the 6 PM class to find them all walking around and shouting. It was complete chaos. It took a couple of minutes to get them all seated and quiet. As I was greeting them Joseph started talking to his neighbor quite loudly, so I kicked him out of class for about 20 minutes. After that the rest of the class participated pretty well. I'm really trying to get them to speak all English, especially as they'll probably be moving into the Impact Intro book next month. Toward the end of class I caught Andy doing his math homework. I took his book away from him and made him stay after class. He had to catch the school bus home so I gave him extra homework to do, due tomorrow.

At 7 they were slightly better than usual. Brandon even asked his classmates some questions in English! I decided not to go to the restaurant tonight because my headache persists. Instead some quiet time at home (and more drugs and caffeine) will hopefully make it go away.