Well a bunch of technology guys inventing new search engines that have prospective applications in artificial intelligence are just not going to go find their English teacher from a piece of soggy paper taped to a wall of some random building. Thank goodness I didn't even bother with that in the end.

The classes went well today. I tell you, it is not an easy thing to come up with a lesson plan. I made my best effort at that in China and half the time it failed. What might seem like a great idea in your head sometimes doesn't work well when received by a bunch of students. You can't just randomly tack together a bunch of diverse ideas for stuff to do. Unless you have worked with or led groups of people before, it is hard to know how to handle them. For me it is hard to take control; I prefer to let things go their own way and be there to help out. But that is not possible in structured classes. I can already tell I am going to have to tell Fran to stop talking and let his guys get practice. And the beginner group (there is a large range in ability) - it isn't as easy as you think it would be, to keep your explanations very, very simple.

Anyways they all responded well to games (I spy worked well for advanced and beginner alike), and most of them benefitted from saying the alphabet, and spelling out their names using the English way of saying letters. Nobody needed the detailed pronunciation of "h" that I had planned; they could all say a short "i" as in my name "Kim", and they weren't too bad with "Spain" either. (Normally Spanish speakers can only say an "sp" if there is an "e" in front of it: "Espain")

Now I rush off to Ernesto's house.