February 2, 2010

Pictures of the Day, January 29 and 30, 2010

Last week was a very busy one, so let's get caught up on these pictures of the day. Here are the ones from January 29 and 30th:

January 29th: I took this picture when I got up early on the 29th to go to the English Teacher's Conference in San Jose. I saw an amazing moon shining through a tree in our back yard, but when the picture came out, it looked quite different. In fact, though, I like this quite a bit more than reality, especially because of the blue sky and the lights of "Downtown Berlin" at the bottom left!

Another picture from the 29th: Angela's been knitting something. Actually, she's knitting this, and she's also knitting something else with some different yarn (technically, this may be crocheting, since there's only one needle). She actually completed two whole scarves, only to find them too scratchy. So she completely unraveled them, and now I think she's making something for the cats to sleep in, although she also mentioned a rug.
It's quite frustrating from a bystander's perspective!

January 30th: This is a picture of my Saturday afternoon "First Steps, Level 2" English class. They're really nice kids, although we seem to have a bit of a language barrier between us.
I think I found a way over the barrier, though: Before each class, I've been buying a packet of Halls (which are considered candy here). Then I write "English Speaking Club" on the board, with the kids' names. If they speak Spanish, I erase a letter, but if part of their name is still on the board at the end of class --which is 4 hours!--, then they get a cough drop. Result: almost 100% English spoken in class.
Ryan Sitzman. Proven results.

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5 comments:

Unknown said...

hey! is that fair for the short-named people of the world? more innately heightist-inspired discrimination methinks! *tsk tsk*

nice pics~ !looks like angela's knitting up some GUTS though!

Unknown said...

(the cats will certainly like THAT!)

Marie Drews said...

Damn, I should start giving my students cough drops.

Sitzman said...

Ah, yes, I was going to mention how I handled name size, but I thought it'd make the post longer and more boring (like when I try to explain my "Clothes Rotation System" or my "Hairline Plate Techtonics."

In any case, almost all the students have 5-letter names, and all have at least that many. So, I just give everyone the first 5 letters of their name, and they start off even. This is a democracy, after all!

Sitzman said...

Oh, and about the knit guts, we can always use it for our off-Broadway zombie musical.

Marie: If you consider cough drops medicine, then you can even call yourself your students' "dealer"!