NALC 6 and 7

It's hard to believe that my time at the NALC has come to an end this week. A few days ago I had my last students.

My first student was a kind hearted, funny, kind lady from South Korea. I think she was the most advanced student that I have had during my times there. She was able to read English fairly well, however she was rather perplexed in her communication skills. It was really strange that she was able to write a note to me but really could not figure out how to say it out loud. Part of me wondered if she was just afraid or shy to use her English in fear of messing up. She did say that from the time she was child in South Korea she had started to learn English in school. She also shared with me that in Korea she worked for Motorola and that she was an Engineer and helped design parts for the iPhone. It was really neat to hear about her live. We mostly "chit chatted" because she felt like it was more helpful for her than reading the book (which we read quickly). Oddly enough, she was able to make jokes at her self and to be "witty" in English. It was great and she as a pure joy to get to teach. I think I have mentioned this before, but I LOVE people from South Korea!

My last student was an individual from Thailand originally. I am always excited to meet my students but she was especially kind to get to be with because I have been to Thailand in the past and so we had a common ground to speak on. Before a student would come in I would always try to find one thing that we might have in common to talk about and this was obviously a large thing. She even knew the place where I had stayed for a while there, which was a small town. Such a small world! Our lesson in the book was to talk about relationships between people. This was real hard to explain because when you describe relationships (cousin, aunt, sister) you often time have to use other relationship work to describe the word- which is challenging to someone just learning the relations. For example, to explain what a cousin is you have to explain your parents siblings children, which is hard if they are also still learning what "parent" means. Wow. Challenging! I think she was able to get it. She even drew me a picture of her family which helped ensure to me that she understood it by the end. Overall, great lesson.