March 14, 2012

The smell of burnt plastic still pervades the apartment, but at least the wall unit was functioning and keeping the living room relatively warm. My 9:30 class was already waiting for me and we proceeded to play more vocabulary games such as “Scattergories”, which they really enjoyed, but found extremely challenging. I didn’t have another class until the teachers’ training session at 1:30pm and asked Nigora to secure the key to the bathroom for me as I could not last any longer, but just like Pariso, she told me there was no bathroom available in the building and I needed to walk to the one used by the students. I took her by the hand and showed her the bathroom and informed her that the dean and his assistant had keys to this bathroom and I needed to use it. By sheer coincidence, one of the teachers in that part of the building is currently participating in my workshops and inquired as to my presence there. When I told him of my desperate need to use the bathroom, he told me he’d go and secure the key. By this time, a group of students stood around us and waited there while I used the facility. I didn’t know that my using a toilet could be a source of entertainment for them.

I went to exchange money, again, to buy more stock paper for lamination, another plug for my living room and to have some more cards laminated. It was raining lightly, but it wasn’t too cold. When I got to the soup place and ordered my usual, a PedInst student whom I had talked to several times, approached my table and asked if she could join me. She’s a fourth year student in the teachers’ program, who had expressed an interest in participating in the workshops at the American Corner, but never showed up. She now has to write her thesis to obtain the equivalent to master degree and needs help with that project. With her limited English, I don’t understand how she can write a 60 page thesis about anything! She insisted on paying for my soup and I offered to give her some electronic materials I have to help with her work.

My classroom was occupied by another class and I had to find another empty room to organize my materials in the meantime. A friend of Hurshed, whom he had mentioned would be calling me about English classes, called through a friend and confirmed she doesn’t speak any English at all. I let her know I don’t teach beginners and had very little time for private classes anyway. The young woman doing the calling then wanted to know if I’d be willing to hold a class for people at the Ministry of Health where they all work. I told her I needed to think about it.

The teachers’ workshop went relatively well, but one of the teachers expressed the opinion that Arabic should be the international language and not English because Arabic hasn’t changed at all since its inception. I countered by saying that all languages must change to adapt and that I was sure Arabic didn’t have words to refer to the computer, its parts or the Internet and had either to adopt the English terms or come up with new ones. He didn’t say anything else. The hubris! Teachers were given their own copy of the conversation booklet and told to do four pages for each class. We’ll see how that goes.

Elbek came in for his class and had never heard of similes. When I asked him to bring me his class textbook so I could have an idea what he’s studying in his English class at school, he responded by saying he had come into his class in October and all books had been handed out already. He doesn’t have a book and only borrows it from another classmate to do his homework. Apparently, the idea of his parents buying a copy just for him hadn’t occurred to anyone.