first class

So today I had my first student. The 9th grader is in his three week break between semesters and is taking a 40 hour TOEFL course with me, as well as a Chemistry course. He is enrolled in, or applying for, (I didnt get the exact information) the most competitive prep school in Thailand. His English is much better than the majority of people I have spoken with here, and he is very motivated to do well. He is so motivated, in fact, that I told him there was nothing specific I wanted him to do outside of class, but he insisted he had something for homework.

I feel very comfortable doing this, as this is almost exactly what I was doing the previous 2.5 years. At first I was slightly nervous, as this is my first work experience in Thailand, but as soon as I was engaged in teaching, everything went fine.

I am glad to be working again. I feel like we've been spending money without making any, which is certainly hard to sustain. Katie is in the process of looking for side work, as her position that will be coming up doesn't start until the end of October, once again because of the semester break. She applied at the YMCA today, and will do a practice lesson on Wednesday. We also hung fliers all over campus for private English language help. We are hoping to get people with theses, tests, and reading/homework problems to call us and pay us by the hour. If we could do that, we could get some side work that would be pretty easy. Katie has gotten one call back, but nothing solid yet. We are keeping our fingers crossed.


PS- Please read Katie's elephant riding post. Her link is on the right. The elephant riding was quite amazing. :)