First Days

I've gone through a few days of teaching at the university. It seems like a good place to work. I wouldn't mind having students with better English skills, but at least most of them are trying. Fortunately, the classes are an hour and a half--this gives me plenty of time to get the students talking. So far, the first half hour of each class has been a struggle; coaxing students to say a few words on the first day is difficult.

Today, it took a bit longer to get the students talking, but it was worth it. Out of my first three classes, this one has the best English skills. Even the students whose skills were lacking at least tried to say something. The biggest problem I ran into was during our short break when one of the students showed me his engineering book (entirely in English). He said he would like me to help him and his classmates to understand the book. I assured him that I'd try, but engineering is a foreign language to me.