Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Brain Drain

Feeling drained--had a busy day today with students. After about three hours of one-on-one tutoring I start to have problems focusing. Tomorrow I have five straight hours of tutoring set up. I do enjoy working with the students, though. I have (a lot) more students this semester than in previous semesters (a result of the ENGL department's decision to not run an ESL freshman comp class)--mostly freaked-out freshmen scared to death of their professor's demands that they read Montaigne, e. e. cummings, and Aristotle.

Taking a tea break, feeling dazed, drained, but not irreverent (inirreverent? I like that. I'll have to add it to my lexicon).

I have a nice mix of students this year. So far: one from Japan (by way of New York), one from China (by way of Canada), one from Belarus who calls herself Russian and another from Lithuania who is decidedly NOT RUSSIAN, one from Columbia, one from (within) Russia, a new students from Korea (and several regulars from Korea), one from the Netherlands, one from Turkey (by way of Germany), one from Zambia, and one very confused American who thought I could help her with her Spanish homework (obviously my "English as a Second Language Tutor" sign was a little unclear).

Anyway, I need to get back into hard-core grammar mode for tomorrow. (I just heard a double modal! I LOVE double modals!) One student I'm working with tomorrow is a math major, so I think a visual approach to the structure of English grammar might be most beneficial for her. (Could I do a modified tree diagram?) At the very least, I want to give her the structure for phrases--I do think it would help her if she felt she had a "formula" to use to check her language. I'll have to try it.

Just thinking aloud.

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