Summer AESL Class

Here are some students doing a presentation where they simulated a job interview. One guy even wore a suit to make the presentation more 'believable'. I thought that was great!

Here I am with two of my Hong Kong students.

Class photo of my summer, advanced, academic ESL students. They were a fun group from Japan, Vietnam, S. Korea, and Hong Kong.

For the fall, I won't be teaching any of my usual adult (immigrant) ESL classes. I'll just be doing the academic (international student) ESL. I want to gain more experience in that area as we will be heading to Seattle in a few months. The more diverse experiences I have, the better chances I have of getting a good job down there.

I've been teaching the higher level ESL students for the past few years, though I do have experience with lower levels also. This fall I will teach a level 2 writing/reading class. It'll be quite a change from my norm where I have taught classes focused mostly on speaking and listening for the advanced students. I'm looking forward to a change and for some new professional development.

Watson Lakes Hike

Yesterday, we took a couple of my students hiking up to Watson Lakes on the south side of Mt. Baker. I had invited all of my 14 international students, and I was really surprised that only 2 decided to come. The rest would rather play video games and chat online I think. : /

Here is Baker Lake and Mt. Baker with daisies

The Watson Lakes hike is about 5 miles RT. In the top right picture below, you can see us with my students from Japan and Vietnam. The guy from Vietnam was having a great time and was like a kid in a candy store. This was the first hike for the Japanese girl and she was apparently pretty out of shape evidenced by her short, struggling breaths and requests for frequent breaks.

In the bottom right picture, you can see one of the many waterfalls that were roaring down the mountain at the second of the two Watson Lakes.

Below is the first of the two Watson Lakes. I love the mirror image the lake created of the mountains.

Showing both Watson Lakes

Ryan was of course (fly) fishing while the others and I were busy swatting the numberous bugs flying around us. It was a short fishing session, I assure you.

This is Mt. Shuksan on the left and Mt. Baker on the right. These are views from the road on the way to the trailhead. You don't actually see Mt. Shuksan on the hike.

Ryan's Flying

Do you see the little plane way up in the sky?

Here are some pictures of Ryan flying and a short clip of him practicing landing. Normally, he has lessons while I'm at work. I was able to see him doing a few touch and goes last week for the first time just before heading to work. It was neat and scary to see!

Ryan was flying that plane!

Sauk Mountain Hike

Here are the pictures of our hike up Sauk Mountain last Sunday. If you cannot see the entire picture, then click on the pictures to go to another page where you can click through at your leisure. I noticed that on one of our computers the whole picture shows up, and on the other it doesn't. : P

Back Home

I'm back from Michigan! It was an intense time of lots of work and little sleep. The picture above is of me and my classmates, which I'm sure you already guessed. The head of the MA TESOL program at Cornerstone University, Dr. Michael Pasquale, is on the back right. He is also the president of the Christian Educators in TESOL caucus this year.

I have been with this group for the past year and will continue online with them until May when I graduate. I'm not planning to make the trip (and expense) back to Michigan for graduation, so this was the last time that I will have seen many of them. I enjoyed being back in the Eastern U.S. having warm summer nights, listening to the 'music' of the cicadas in surround sound, and seeing the intermittent sparks of fireflies--all things I miss from growing up in Georgia. Michigan is a pretty place with a nice layout, but I think the winters there would kill me....maybe even more than the rain in WA, but that's debatable!

I got back early Saturday morning, and that afternoon we picked organic blueberries in Arlington. We got there a little late, so we didn't get to pick as many as we would have liked to. It was a small, family-owned farm with 13 varieties of blueberries. We enjoyed tasting different ones as we picked! After such stressful weeks in Michigan, it was really relaxing to be outside peacefully picking blueberries with the sound of the neighbor's horses galloping back and forth in the field.

Sunday, we went hiking with my brother to Sauk Mountain. I'll post pictures from that later. For now, I've got a lot to prepare for teaching in a few hours. I've got a week and a half of classes to teach and then I'll have about a 5 week break from work. I have no homework of my own for about a month, which is great. I'm praying about what to teach in the fall. I think that I won't be able to teach both the adult (immigrant) ESL and the academic (international students) ESL because it's just really too much for me to do along with my masters. I like both though and don't want to give one up.

I'll get back to lesson planning and post more when I can.