Word of the day- lumberjack

Before beginning to share about the English classes I am teaching this summer, I must apologize for the lack of posting that has happened lately.  Things are starting to seem so normal here that I often don't think that people back home would be at all interested in the current goings-on. 

For this reason, I am writing this post today to tell you about my favorite  part of summer here--my opportunity to teach English to the kids.  Monday through Friday I teach one hour a day to kids of a wide range of levels.  We mostly work on vocabulary, although in the past couple weeks I’ve been delving into parts of speech and verb conjugations with the older kids.

The biggest challenge for me is targeting each class at what will be most useful for the kids in that class.  If they are on the pathway to an international adoption, I try to give them the words and phrases they'll need to know when they get dropped into an English speaking family.  If they are approaching the end of their education, I need to teach a much higher level of English--trying to tie together all the vocabulary they've learned to make real-world conversations possible. My experience this summer has made me wonder if maybe I do want to teach after all.  (It was just a fleeting moment of curiosity, however. I am SO excited to go back to school for my MLIS in the fall!)

These are the girls in 2 of the 10 classes I teach.  I am so proud of the progress they have made over the last 2 months! -C

P.S. I did teach the word "lumberjack" last week to one of the boys classes; we were discussing another volunteer's crazy red beard, and there was no way to converse without this valuable English word :)