english birthing and lentils

I have now officially taught 3 classes in English. Students are divided into 3 groups which are again divided into 3 sub groups, including Levels 1 2 3 of Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced English. My first two classes were Level 2 Beginning (REALLY beginning) and my one-on-one class today was a Level 2 Intermediate. Beginning is difficult- I didn't realize that I speak so quickly in English, and I have to speak painfully slowly. Most of my classes have 3-5 people in them, and as we're learning past tense verbs (the pronunciation difference between skate-ed and listened- +1 syllable vs. just kind of add a t sound), I had them make sentences practicing the past-tense verbs, but sometimes they wouldn't understand me! Our conversations went like this:

Me: Very good, the past tense of graduate is graduate-ed, excellent pronunciation. Can you make a sentence with the word graduated?

Student: [friendly smile- I understand this reaction, I've done it many times when the other person ended with a smile and I didn't understand them]

Me: Oh, OK. Can you make a phrase using the word graduated?

Student: Oh, 2003!

Me: Oh, you graduated in 2003? That's great! Please use the word graduated in a full sentence.

Student: [turns to others for help]

I'm sure my teaching techniues will improve and I'll learn which words are difficult to understand, which phrases are most commonly used and easiest to catch on to, but it's so frustrating! They're very good at repeating what they've just learned, and they can converse about basic things- they can tell me their duties or responsibilities at work, and talk about where they live, and I get easily deceived into thinking that they understand a lot more of what I'm saying. The nice thing (for them) is that even after countless years of Spanish class and multiple months in Spanish speaking environments, I still find myself occasionally just smiling or nodding when another person finishes talking, so I understand the frustration and I hope I can respond kindly and patiently.

The good thing is that my one-on-one student this morning (I start every day except Monday at 8:00am EVERY DAY! que temprano!) is that he is very conversational, and I taught him ever useful phrases such as "just suck it up", "pet peeve", "indeed" (completely untranslateable). For the record, he had heard the phrase just suck it up and asked about it, I didn't necessarily begin the lesson explaining the necessity of crudely telling a business partner to just suck it up and do something.

Tonight I head out of MY office to attend to a one-on-one with another business CEO in HIS office (and making the big bucks- 6 mil instead of 5 mil per hour!). I think I'll need to celebrate the end of my first official PAID international work week after that.

In the non-corporate, non-English world, I met up with some of the nurses and feminists at the clinic yesterday, even though we didn't go into the clinic- lots of people around were in there for swine flu and it seemed better to play it safe. The girls and women are working on a project "humanizing" the birthing process. Women giving birth are apparently not given much individual decision making power here, and giving birth is considered to be painful, embarassing, and humiliating. They're working on a project to demystify and demythify the birth, or the "parto". It was interesting to hear them talk about the issues (one of the nursing students, 23 years old, has a 5 year old son and talked about her pregnancy and birthing), and what they wanted to do to change things. I went out to lunch (to the veg place again, too! I had lentils!) with my favorites of the 2 women (one university student studying anthropology and a Mexican woman who studied in Berkley, met a Chilean, and moved to Chile who now teaches English and acts as a sort-of midwife for women), and we continued talking about the project. While maternal health and rights aren't really my area of specialty or my true interest in the range of work with women, the project is interesting, and it's a good "in" for the moment. Also, these two women were hoping to get the help of Fresia, whom I already met and whom I will see on Monday! So I felt cool with my network already in the process of establishment.

May everyone else be enjoying themselves as much as I am these days! abrazos.