Trailblazers: Marty Was Wrong

They DO have teenagers here. I have three classes full of them. Trailblazers is the level at EF reserved for, you guessed it, teenagers. Traiblazers is not more difficult to lesson plan than adult classes or ealry learners, it's not harder for traiblazers to understand the material, and the material itself is not especially easy or hard compared to other levels. The most common problem is motivation. Parents send their four-year-old children to EF, and what can they do about it? They're four! For them it means having an hour reserved for playing while accidnetaly learning English. "Wow, that was fun! Oops, hey, you learned English!" For adults, well, they pay quite a bit of money out of their own pockets to attend a course at EF. The equivalent is about as much as a you spend in one month to live. Truly an investment for people here, seeing as how sometimes they don't even have enough money to live for one month. Result: adults come to class and have a certain invaluable quality that trailblazers often lack: MOTIVATION. It becomes exceedingly difficult to teach English to a student in a fun and ingaging way when the decision to be their is not their own. In particular I have difficulty with my 3:00 Tuesday/Thursday class. To begin with, the class is very large, which makes control a big issue. Second, my class includes a small handful of students who are very quick to learn, and a larger handful that have come to about half the classes. If you come to only half the classes, you will fail, and their is not point in comming to any more classes, ESPECIALLY is you are not motivated to learn. Imagine paying an entire month's salary for you child to have the golden opportunity of learning English, only to find out later that he failed because he didn't care to attend. Sorry mom and dad, should have sent him before he was a teenager!

On a lighter note, Hannah and I went to Base G last weekend (a local beach) and while Hannah bathed in the ocean I explored the surroudning ocean cliffs. I found in one spot some very usable clay, which I gathered into a ball. Then I journey back to the beach, and from there made my way up the hill, through the jungle in search of a suitable banana leaf to wrap my clay in. I eventually found a path that led across a ridge to the top of the hill overlooking the ocean. I declined to follow it and instead turned back towards the beach. I found along the path a spot of jungle that had been torched for some reason, and behind the black ground was a banana tree! I walked barefoot across the ash, and tore off a smaller banana leaf, wraped it around my clay, and tied it with some sort of stringy plant nearby. Now the clay is soaking in water, and later when it has evaporated enough, I will pour off the top and reconstitute it. After that, I assumer there will be nothing but happy pottery!

Until next time,
-Nickl