This summer slow down at Inkreadable continues. It comes as no surprise, dear reader, that all of my students have decided that while it is summer they are going to go and do fun things. I wish that I could follow suit and take a vacation. But the Netherlands is starting to see an uptick in cases for COVID-19 and I’m not sure that I want to travel. Having said that, I’m probably going to see Jasper’s aunt next weekend. I have also taken to wearing a mask even in the stores. It’s not required, but I feel better and it gets me used to wearing a mask which is never a fun thing. I’ve also taken the precautions of wearing it in highly populated areas. So basically all over Amsterdam. It feels dystopian, but what can you do?
VIPKid continues to exhibit alarming tendencies of being in real trouble. On 1 August the teachers are again striking in protest over the payment structure. I too have decided to strike. Might as well make use of the day off. The new-to-me students was a fluke, dear reader. I have now gone back to my regular students and my schedule is a sea of blue With the possible exception of Friday, which seems to be a fairly heavy day and I can get 4 to 5 hours booked. I wish that trend would show up throughout the week, but I don’t think that will happen.
Felix was a no-show last Friday, but showed up yesterday evening. He will again be a no-show this Friday, I guess he has better things to do than study English. It’s a bit frustrating because I would like to have a little bit of consistency in my schedule. Karolina is back on my schedule as of this Tuesday and I am interested just hear what she did for her thesis and how it went. I think I’m going to try the new book that I found for Alex with Karolina. The 21st-century readings are quite interesting and I think she’ll be able to handle most of the exercises. They may in fact be quite easy for her. Speaking of Alex, I had lesson number two with him on Sunday and while he felt that the lesson was great, his mom felt that the material was too difficult for him. Also I think she thought that I wasn’t using the book, when in fact I was. In order to compensate for him having difficulty, I have told her which chapter we will be starting on Sunday of this week so that he can prepare a bit. I do find preparation to be a bit of a double-edged sword however. If the student has done all of the work before hand, then what point and what purpose does the teacher serve? I will have to see how to adapt.
The VIPKid teacher that I had staying with me left on Friday after a couple of days of wandering around Amsterdam. She is now headed to Brussels and going to link up with another friend of mine who lives there. One of the nice things about being a VIPKid teacher and having a Facebook group that criscrosses the EU, is that you can always give access to contacts all over the continent. This is never a bad thing. She participated in my board game night. The experience was a good one, and I would definitely host again. But this time I think I would ask that we finish by a certain hour as everybody left by 11 o’clock by the time I went to bed it was a bit late and I was not at my best the next day for teaching the next day.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always there is more to come.
Inkreadable 