I’ve been glossing the Penguin Reader version of White Fang for my students tomorrow. It’s the story of a 3/4 breed wolf/dog who lived around the Mackenzie River. The book’s a bit harder than what my kids have been reading, but it seems pretty accessible to them since it has so many animals [...]

One of the great things about teaching EFL is seeing the different responses of each class to the same material. My old Monday/Thursday class finished reading Pocahontas (the 45 page Oxford Bookworms version) a bit back, and they enjoyed it quite a bit. One student had a few difficulties with all the new [...]

This last week has been the roughest work week for me yet. I’m very pleased with the progress of my students, and the development of my EFL curriculum, but the business side of things has been disastrous. I had thought that I’d be opening two new classes this Monday, but neither opened. [...]

Three of my 1st and 2nd graders are ready to move to my evening classes. Here’s one of their spelling drills. They haven’t memorized these words; it’s all based on phonics. I’m not used to having so few students, and the video is a bit sluggish. I’m happy that I was able to [...]

This is insanity. I had eight hours of class yesterday. While that may not sound like so much to some, for a teacher at least, it’s a lot. While I’m in class, I’m basically at the front of the room, pacing back and forth like bull, shouting out directions and whipping my [...]

The very first Dr. Seuss book I have my students read is Hop on Pop. It’s easy enough in terms of phonics and vocabulary that my students can handle it pretty easily by the time they finish the first book in the Up and Away series of textbooks. Most of my first and [...]

Things have been busy again. I’ve been helping Poagao migrate his site to Wordpress. It’s been much more difficult helping him migrate than anybody else I’ve helped. Since Google updated Blogger, all the old migration tools are broken. The fact that Poagao’s Journal is six years old, is a Byzantine mix [...]

This week has been nuts. I’ve alternately gone from thinking so many students would quit that I wouldn’t be able to make rent to thinking that my student numbers just might double over the next few months.

Nine students came to my new class today. It’s not a big class, but it’s a relief after having already resolved to push on and teach a class of four at a loss. The class went really well, too. I was able to teach halfway into the second lesson all during the [...]

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been on vacation. I didn’t go anywhere, though. I stayed at home the whole time. I did a bit of curriculum work for the first couple of days, but after that, I put work out of my mind and just relaxed. I had time for [...]