First Day of Class

Today was launch day, and it went amazingly well. When you think about the fact that 340 students had to be bussed to campus from various parts of the city – although I thought I saw a few getting dropped off by parents – and that the building isn’t quite completed, there were surprisingly few hiccups. I had only two absences in each class. They may show up tomorrow or not at all. But quite frankly, I didn’t find much different than a first day in a UW ESL class.

The students are charming, of course. Like all classes the they display a wide range of personalities and interests. I teach two 100-minute periods each day. Just one prep, so that’s nice. We really are starting from scratch: “My name is Martha. What is your name?” And “I’m from Seattle. Where are you from?” We spoke a bit about hobbies; “ I like to …”

My first class is very lively but less proficient in English; the second one is more sedate but appears to be a bit further along. We finished the day with a little reading proficiency exam and one student told me “not read English.” It was really only a notch above Dick and Jane, and I think she knew more than she thought. However, it did take the first class a while to read the little story and answer five multiple choice questions; my second class was finished in 5 minutes.

After the last class one young man, who had diligently copied down everything I wrote on the board in very neat handwriting – he was stilling in the first row so I saw the notebook page – wanted to talk to me. He said he was Kurdish and didn’t start learning Turkish until he was 10. He started English at 16. I think what he was trying to tell me was that his English class was either after school or on weekends or something like that. He said the teacher really didn’t know English – he was a math teacher. And the teacher came and went, and the students came and went. He was trying to explain why his English was so weak, but I told him he did a good job of explaining his situation. He’ll probably end up being the best student in the class.

The one comical aspect to the morning was the confusion over room numbers. As of yesterday there were no room numbers posted anywhere. A couple of teachers went around and put yellow sticky notes on each doorjamb so we’d know where to go. We got our class lists yesterday afternoon and then went out and checked our spaces; mine was 213. This morning the bus got us the campus with little time to spare. I put my notebook with class list, etc. in the room and ran up to my office. When I came back down, a confused student showed me that someone had crossed out the 213 in pencil and written 212 below. Then I looked up and saw someone had indeed put up room numbers. The number plates were really quite lovely – red ovals with black lettering and gold rims, or something close to that. The only problem was that whoever put them up didn’t realize that the order was important. I expected to find room 213 next to room 212. However, it was down the hall next to room 210. And while I was teaching someone changed the number to 215. I hope we all find each other tomorrow morning.