Tuesday's Torch Story

Tonight is the final exam... It covers the entire year - from our earliest lessons on introducing yourself and knowing simple colors and shapes to our most recent lessons on conjugating verbs.

It will include the vocabulary flash cards covering the 300 most commonly used words in the English language...

the false cognates that can get a person into so much trouble (embarazada doesn't mean embarrassed - it means pregnant!)...

and the (approximate) translations of the lyrics of the dozen or so songs that we studied.

There will be body parts and adjectives - although not necessarily together. ;)

It's not about being mean or tough. It's about helping each student decide independently if he wants to stay with me next year and go through it all again, or if she feels in control of this material and is ready to move up to the intermediate class.

Because - while I have LOTS of ideas for improvements - I am planning to basically repeat the bulk of the course material next year.

Speaking of ideas, we're going to have a short (2 month) summer session, and I'm going to really change things up for that session. My plan is to focus on conversation. Each week's homework assignment will be a reading (in English) and each class period will be spent primarily discussing the reading (also, of course, in English).

Right now I'm trying to come up with a good selection of readings. Not surprisingly, I've found dozens of websites with options to consider. I'm also rooting through our bookcases - and have been skimming essays by James Thurber and Dave Barry. If anyone reading this has any suggestions based on personal experience, I'd love to hear them! Thanks! :)