AND THE TOTAL IS .... 238!

That's the total number of students that I teach. That's also the reason I haven't posted for the past two weeks.

238 doesn't seem that big in comparison to what I know some teachers have had to teach ... but it sure makes it hard to remember your student's names or pick them out of the crowd. I think I'll just assume that if a student says hi to me on the street, I probably teach them.

I teach three kinds of classes. One is for freshmen English majors, one is for upperclassmen who have elected English as their second major, and the last type is for anyone who wants to take an English "training class" with a foreign teacher and this last one is ungraded.

I sorta feel like the freshman course is my main focus. It's the one that I have to do the most planning for, and I am the sole teacher for this course. There are four classes of it total, and each class sees me once a week. Below is a picture of one of my classes. As you can see, these classes are a good size, I feel like it's actually possible for me to get to know four groups of twenty students. (The classroom was already decorated like this when I started.)



The classroom for this course is on the seventh floor of this building. It's huge, isn't it!?!?



Luckily, there are two elevators. Otherwise, it would take me probably ten minutes to climb the stairs and walk down the long hall way to get to my classroom. Almost every time I ride the elevator, it's always a guessing game about how many people and how much weight it will hold. Don't worry too much though ... it comes equipped with a sensor that tells you when it's over weight and it won't go until someone gets off. ... But maybe you should worry a bit, since one of the other teachers said that some of her students got stuck in the elevator last week and had to climb out. I think it was the one of the left, so I've been trying to take the one on the right.

I don't have to ride the elevator for my other courses ... there isn't one in that building. I actually like climbing the stairs to the fifth and sixth floor, where those classes meet - it'll help me keep in shape when the weather turns cold and we can't go out as much.

There are only two classes of second majors; I teach one, and one of the other American teachers teaches the other. It's a bigger group, of 40 plus students, and harder to keep track of, since some have been switching which day they come to the class.

The training classes just started last week, and though these were huge classes (40 one day, 42 the next) they were actually quite enjoyable. They're so much more relaxed than my freshman ... I suppose that's because they're not being graded. They're actually more willing to ask questions and speak up.

I'm quickly adjusting to the routine for lesson planning and teaching. I planned my lesson for the freshman class this week on Saturday. Tomorrow I'll pull together the things for the second majors and the training class.

I hope that I can quickly adjust to having 238 students, too!