Sometimes, dear reader, you have to be really quick to adapt as a teacher. That was the case this week when my Amstelveen student brought her kids to our lessons. The first lesson of the week, which was on Wednesday, didn’t go as well as I would have liked as I didn’t know the kids were going to be there in the first place. I was able to engage the older child a little bit by talking to him but the younger one, as sweet as he was, did not have enough language to participate. I had forgotten, that school was out for an extra week due to Covid. Friday was a bit better as I spent half the class time with the kids playing two truths and a lie, Simon Says, and Rory’s story cubes. Games are not that easy to do when you have low-level learners across the board. Still, Simon Says worked well. The other two games that we played were a bit of a challenge but I think that the kids had fun and that was the point. I am pretty sure Harumi was also appreciative. We spent the rest of the lesson going over functional language for going to the pharmacy. I am not sure how useful that will be here in the Netherlands, as Harumi generally brings her own medications from Japan. I can relate completely, dear reader. There are things that I bring from the US every time I come back to the Netherlands because they just don’t have the same things here.
ShinWei otherwise known as my student from Taiwan has received praise from his Dutch-speaking boss that his English is getting better. I hope that translates to at least 10 more hours of lessons. We are in the middle of our third package and I would be quite happy to continue with him even to the point where I will work with him while in the US. I am a little conflicted about both Sander and Martijn. Both of those happen too early in the day for me to want to wake up at the corresponding time of their lessons while in the US. It’s a double problem because I will be in the states for 3 weeks from the 29th of January until the 20th of February, and while I might not want to wake up at those times, not having any income for those weeks is quite difficult as well.
On Thursday, Karolina let me know no that she may have to end our lessons at least temporarily though possibly permanently. Both of us were quite upset. We have been working together for nearly 2 years and she has come a really long way. So much so that I offered to meet with her once a week for half an hour if only just to converse for free. All of my freelancer friends will probably shudder, but it’s not in my work ethic to let someone lose their language simply because they can’t take lessons for me temporarily. Also, I have to look on the bright side. With a pending trip to the US and lots of work when I get there, maybe trying to schedule lessons will be a little bit too much. In true freelancer fashion, I just have to deal with it when it comes up.
It was not a good weak writing-wise. I got online to write but found myself exceedingly tired by Thursday and could do absolutely nothing. Mercury must be in retrograde again because Zoom did not want to work for the Writers group after I had left the meeting they had to set up another link. On Sunday the writers group got together to do some writing but I ended up going for a walk instead. It was one of those funny Amsterdam days raining one minute and literally sunny the next. Still, it made for an interesting outing. Let’s hope this week is a lot more productive writing-wise than last week was.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come
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