1st day back

Today is the first day of the the new semester, well for the students, that is. I have been back since last week. I have two classes today, TN9 & EPG but only the TN group will go as the others are still traveling as part of their job. They work for Syngenta and are here one day and then I don’t see them for a while. Usually the first class half the class comes so today we might play a game instead of having class and start lessons only on Wednesday night. I have a Taboo game to play with them, advanced groups like this kind of stuff It’ll be my first time of giving these guys class, they were my wife’s group last semester though so I know them all quite well. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, the group is 99% girls. I gave oral tests to some of them and they speak well so we should get along fine.

I wanted to spend the weekend preparing some stuff online for my groups but the radio internet in our city wasn’t working and they only solved the problem this morning. A bit annoying but nothing could be done about it until today. Roberta has a lot of stuff already prepared from last semester so I’ll have a look see whats in her files before I start making any more. She has a knack for worksheets. She loves making them, I like to make them too but she just has the flair for them   I’d really like to try using Yacapaca with my TN6 group, I must try to find the time to get around to setting up some stuff on it. This semester I have more group and less free time at home, plus I’ll try to give some private classes too. I already have material for these classes, both methodology and conversation classes. I’ll try getting students for these at the local uni because a lot of students are taking English letras courses and can’t speak a word of English. It sounds wierd but it is true, they devide the course into people who speak and don’t speak English. They all get the same degree whether they speak or not too, it really is a strange thing :-S  A lot of my old students are studying there so I like going there to catch up with them. Hopefully, I’ll get a group or two from there..

testing, testing..

I finally got quite a few exercises up and running in Quizlet and created the links for them in the students wikis or I created a new Wikispace wiki as in the case of my EPG groups. I got them to take a quick look at the site this morning during the coffee break so they could have a quick look see and ask any question they might have about how to get into the site, using and configuring, etc. The Quizlet site is very simple to use and setup, the students only need is to register in the site to use the learn function. I will find out next weekend how they got on with it. They have my email and phone no just in case they want to call me about it. I think it’ll be a lot of fun for them to try it out. I have some to create for my MEC2 group this weekend, it’ll only take a short amount of time though. The site is really fast and does all of the hard work for me so by Monday morning I’ll have it all sorted out and ready to give the links to my students

Also this weekend I have to remember to pick up the stuff to make a cake for my kids group at Cambridge. I thought I’d get Roberta to give me a hand to knock one out Sunday night to take there Monday with some soft drink, just for a surprise   They have been working hard recently so I think it’ll be a nice treat for them. I’ll try to remember to take the camera with me to get some snaps of them, if they aren’t camera shy, of course   I like baking cakes and stuff for the students, it’s a nice way to relax with them after they’ve been working hard during the semester. Sometimes if we are ahead of the schedule we watch a movie in English and have a lanche or snack. This always goes down really well, students love watching movies hahahaha!! Usually we watch comedies or action movies, although I’m sure the girls would watch romance if the boys would let them