School's In

Overnight, the weather has cooled significantly to usher in the fall. So not only are Ralph and Alice happily no longer making appearances, but school is underway. We now have two weeks of teaching under our belts, and overall it’s been a positive experience.

Peter came home after his first day exclaiming, “This is fun!” We both teach in English, the classes last 80 minutes, and the students are polite. We’re not sure how well we’re being understood, but students as well as our co-workers seem happy to have us there.

At Peter’s large university, he is working with first- and second-year students (who are 17 to 19 years old) in their Management and Translation departments. Working from textbooks edited by the department faculty, he teaches in “Entrepreneurship” and “American Studies” courses, rotating through subgroups of the 80-student classes to lecture on the same topics for two weeks at a time. So though he teaches two classes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning, he sees the same students only once every two weeks. As someone who feels it’s important to learn people’s names, he’s struggling with the realization that it may be next to impossible to learn the 150 or so names if he sees them only once a fortnight. And after discussing “Immigration” and “Types of Businesses” six times each in the last two weeks, he’s now able to talk about them in his sleep!

At my much smaller university, I’m teaching two classes, International Marketing to 4th year students and “Ethics and Culture in International Enterprise” to 5th year students. In both cases, the topic was assigned, but the course content and structure were left up to me. I have a couple of textbooks as well as the Internet and the local library to draw from for material. I’ve also used some old Wall Street Journals for articles and case studies. The students have no textbooks, so they copy selections from my books, or else I type up condensed versions of the material. Classes are small at six to eight students. The English level varies, and it’s hard to gauge the best level at which to aim the material, but I’m feeling my way along as best I can.

Peter was pleased to find a nice local gym in which to get back to working out. We had checked out some other “fitness clubs” here but most were small, dingy, below-ground, filled with old equipment, and populated by massive, unfriendly body-builder types. It turns out there’s a new, large, clean place just a couple blocks from our apartment, with good new equipment and helpful staff. It’s just what he was looking for, and he now visits a couple times a week.