Runaways

Every other day I teach a high school ESL class for an hour and a half. During this time my kiddies are shipped off to things like Spanish and PE. Why in the world do I teach ESL you ask. Why indeed. Despite my definite lack of ESL training I think we are coming along and we have a good time. My ESL class consists of a few Chinese students, a few Korean students, one Japanese student, three Finns and a Swede ( I affectionately call the last bunch "the Swinns" or the hockey players cause that's what they are and that's what they have come to America for for some reason). Today was a lot of fun watching my T.A.'s try to describe words such as "crawl" and "bare" to the students they were reading with. It was also quite entertaining to watch Y. pretend he didn't know what the word "the" meant.
Though my teaching experience here is quite different from Baltimore, I have learned that high school students will be high school students everywhere. The fact that we are in a little private school in Utah didn't stop the Swinns for one second from escaping out the back classroom door while I was just outside the front classroom door getting a sip of water. It was quite funny actually. When I came back in the room and realized they had made their escape I went to the back door and saw them zipping around the corner of the building to their freedom. Who can really blame them. Running away is so much more fun than reading "Animal Farm." (Yes, I have them reading "Animal Farm". They should be in a regular English class.) Despite the embarrassment of losing a few students I didn't mind too much. The Swinns have been exceedingly lazy. It was nice to see them show a little initiative.