First Day of Class!

Do you remember that gitty/slightly nervous/anxious/excited feeling for the first day of school? Well multiply that times 10, throw in a pinch of uneasiness and about a gallon and a half of sweat and you've got my first class. Ok ok, it wasn't that bad, and although the sweat wasn't really an exaggeration, I'm blaming most of that on the 20+ minute walk and humidity. Anyways the students are really great and I think it'll be a fun class.

I took one step into the classroom and immediately there were oohs and ahhs and then a full applause! I was shocked! I couldn't help but smile, and if my hair hadn't been trying to afro its way back to the 70's, I almost would have felt glamorous. I started the class with an introduction of myself and then gave them the basic outline of the course. I then had the students write down a little paragraph about themselves so that I could learn more about each of them as well as judge where their English skills were. We then played a get to know the teacher game which started out with me writing a few words about myself on the board: Yaqui, 21, Kylie, 9, sand, and banana. The students then had to ask yes/no questions to try and figure out how each word related to me. My street name (Yaqui) was thought to be my boyfriend's name, and they thought that either bananas were famous in Arizona or that I'd like to buy the class a round of bananas. Sorry, but the banana was simply my breakfast of choice this morning. We finished up the class rather early which got me another thunderous round of applause! I could get used to this.

The class consisted of 55 students of which only 10 were men. Most of the students are from the Sichuan province but there were a few from neighboring provinces and one young woman from Tibet. Their energy and eagerness is contagious and I'm very much looking forward to teaching them all they want to know about English and the United States.