At the University...

Well, I’m sitting here at lunch break for my class at the university.  What?  I forgot to tell you that I’m teaching a class at the university?  My bad.  A few weeks ago, a friend of mine from church called me and asked me if I was available to teach a 4-week class at the university where she also teaches.  I had been asked another time to teach, but it just didn’t work out with my schedule.  But the timing of this class was perfect: 4 Saturdays in a row, 8 am – 5 pm.  So, here I am…

It’s a great class.  I’m teaching Module 7 (of 7) for the Fundación de la Universidad Pedigógica Nacional.  At the end of this class, the students will receive a diploma for having learned English.  There are 15 students in the class and most of them have a fairly high degree of proficiency.  The few who are not at the same level are mostly lacking in their conversational skills.  Their comprehension seems to be pretty decent.

This morning, we spent a while watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory.  I wanted to see how much the students could comprehend without subtitles.  At first, only a few people were understanding the show.  By about the middle of it, most of the class seemed to be understanding and laughing at many of the jokes.  After we talked about it and what made it difficult to understand, we watched the same episode again – but with Spanish subtitles.  As might be expected, with subtitles it was much easier for them.

I have a whole afternoon of activities and exercises planned.  Plus, I think we’ll watch another episode of Big Bang Theory.  I’ve been trying to make sure that I have way more material planned than I could possibly need.  That way, if I see that a particular lesson is bombing, I can quickly switch gear.

I got to my classroom early this morning so that I could set up my computer and the projector.  I was also able to walk across the way and buy a couple of baleadas and a bag of orange juice from a street vendor.  While I was sitting outside eating my breakfast, I saw a bus full of police officers pull up. (The university is directly across the street from the police station.)  I watched more than 22 policemen (and women) get off the bus. A busito that probably should not have had more than about 15 people on it.  There were also 10 or 12 mattresses on top of the busito.  It made me think of The Godfather and I wondered if the police were going to “go to the mattresses” to combat the rising crime here in the country.  Not likely, I thought.

For lunch, I walked down to the parquet to see what the street vendors there might be offering.  I decided on a couple of pupusas and a Coke.  I was going to eat in the park and do some serious people watching, but it started raining a little.  Not too hard, but just enough that sitting out in the rain would not have been enjoyable.  I asked for my food to go and walked back to the Pedagógica.  

And that brings you up to the present.  The pupusas were quite good, by the way.  More later…