First Lessons

The first week of class went well, but was also exhausting. I catch a 6:45 a.m. Golden Gate Transit bus from Rohnert Park and arrive in San Francisco at 8:15. I get home after 7:00 p.m.

Before class starts at 9:30 I walk around Chinatown, sipping hot chá, sometimes with a dumpling or some coconut bread. I like listening to the chatter of the produce vendors and morning shoppers on Stockton Street – even though I can’t understand anything – many of them are speaking Cantonese. One day I spoke a little Mandarin with an elderly woman selling newspapers. I also have wǔfàn (lunch) in Chinatown. I need more practice using chopsticks.

My teachers are excellent and my fellow students – there are 13 of us – are an interesting group. Apparently this school – Transworld Schools (see Favorite Web Sites) – has a good reputation. There are three people from out of state: New York, New Orleans, and Japan. Most of the students are planning to stay in the U.S. to teach – in their home states or in SF. But a few like me are headed overseas. Bryan and Lisan, a couple from San Jose, (he's Vietnamese, she's Indonesian), already have teaching jobs lined up in Sihanouk City, Cambodia – they fly out one week after getting their certificates. John, another student, has taught in Ho Chi Minh City and plans to return to his job there. I’m hoping to find a job in a southern Chinese city – Guiyang, Nanning, or Kunming.

In addition to the ESL teacher training program the school offers ESL classes to non-English speakers, and so we'll be doing plenty of practice teaching. We taught our first lesson on Wednesday, and another on Friday. It was harder than I thought it was going to be. It's often a challenge to get young, shy students from Japan, Korea, China, Turkey, etc. to talk English. But they’re friendly, thankful, and eager to learn. I'm looking forward to improving and gaining more confidence as a teacher.