When you knew that it was over...

It's finally here.  semester's end!  friday morning writing class met to hand in Final Projects.  I also had them answer some questions with an eye to evaluating the class, textbook, general direction for the future.  i hate the book, and to their credit, so do most of them.  it is template writing, giving them model essays to use as patterns, with stultifyingly boring topics.  i did a lot of other stuff, including having them keep dialogue journals, and they've given me ideas for yet more to do beyond the book.  i've been nagging the department to change to a better text, but it won't happen in the coming semester.  they've already given textbook orders to the bookstore.  i don't know if i'll have the class again next term anyway.  won't know what i'll have until after the holidays, once registration is mostly completed.  it looks as if i will have a section of Beginning Spanish, though.  i haven't taught anything but ESL for such a long time, this will be a challenge.

after class a gang of South Korean students took me out to lunch.  they are currently my favorite group, and fast becoming our largest constituency of ESL students. i was seriously challenged when they first began showing up in classes.  i speak no asian languages, and even their names seemed impossible to learn and remember.  i try to refrain from translation as a method of teaching something, but when my back is to the wall i can always use it for Hispanic, Haitian and most European students.  not so for Koreans.  but they are, as a group, so willing and motivated, not to mention loving and generous, that we have bridged the communication gap in numerous ways.  it's kind of devastating though, they come to DTCC and learn English, then leave for Baltimore or one of the Penna cities in search of better jobs for themselves and better educations for their kids.  the chicken plants are bringing them over for a year of indentured servitude, after which they are free to leave and find real lives.  they do get green cards out of the deal, so they grit their teeth and make it through. many have university degrees already, and are pretty horrified at the jobs they end up doing in chicken processing.