You don't want to play a game? Well, you have to.

My English classes have officially begun. Last night I had 2 full classes, one a beginner and one a beginner intermediate. Both classes were full and we had a lot of fun. I decided that everyone in the class needed to have an English name so I gave out English names and had my students stand up and introduce themselves to the class with their new name. I thought it was pretty fun, most of the students did too, but I could tell that this whole interactive learning thing was pretty new for a lot of them. In Costa Rica the school system is largely based on students copying stuff in their notebooks. They come into class and are told to copy something from the board into their notebook, that is how it's done, at every age in every subject. Just copy. This is not how I choose to teach because I don't think it works and it's really boring to me and learning should be fun. Anyway, so some of the students are adjusting to the games that we play in class. It's kind of funny, at first their like, we have to play a game (all whinny about it) and then once we start playing they are laughing and really having a good time. I guess we will see how it goes. I expect that some students will not make it to the end of the course, but that's very typical.

Other than that I'm just hanging out. I'm currently 5 books into the #1 Ladies Detective Agency books. They are awesome, I really enjoy reading them and would recommend them to any of you. I'm working on getting some more pics of La Palma to post, hopefully I'll have that ready for next week.