Last week’s pronunciation trial lesson went precisely as expected. I was able to convince him that he did indeed need more lessons for pronunciation and so he has decided to take six hours which will commence this Wednesday. That means that I’ve got four lessons with him until I leave for the US, and then we will take a break while he is in Greece because everybody else actually takes a vacation when they go away. Unlike me who actually works through her vacations. I have a feeling that one of the lessons will have to be online because it falls within the week that I am in the US but that’s okay because the time difference isn’t terrible and I won’t have to get up super early to do any teaching. In terms of teaching skills, it was the second time I had tried emulating back what I am hearing when Greek speakers speak in English. That too was quite successful as he felt that his accent was quite ugly. We will have to agree to disagree as I find that any accent in English is wonderful as it’s a sign of bravery. I contacted him via WhatsApp over the weekend to make sure that he wanted more lessons so that I could book a room and he did. I booked the room and he said that he would contact the English Center after the weekend to set up the lessons.
If you joined my blog recently, dear reader, then you will not know that I spent a year in Scotland leading a writer’s group there. You likewise may not know that I also created a writer’s group a year later in Washington DC. I ran that group until I left for the Netherlands in 2017. When I left, I gave the group to my co-organizer and he ran it. During the pandemic, they went online and remained online, but over the weekend I was party to an email chain from this group where their attendance is quite low. I did not realize that the co-organizer had stopped organizing and taking care of the group. One of the members for whom his social life was the group was quite concerned. I reached out personally to him to give him some ideas, but as of this writing, he has not responded. The trail of emails was such that it seems like my former group will be running maybe once every month or every quarter. It makes me sad that it was not able to survive. But I think that is the case with groups in Washington as Washington tends to be a quite transient city. There are very few people who make Washington their permanent home. My dad did but he came there for university and never left. My mom went there for a job and never left. But it’s not so for most people. But it sent me into a bit of a panic because I realized that Amsterdam is also fairly transient and I wonder how long our group will survive. But the group here is a different one as we sit together and write together and we’re not a critique group.
It’s been fairly quiet with the teaching front as one of my private students is finishing in the next couple of weeks. It’s okay as we will remain friends but I’m going to miss our lessons. In addition, I finished up the pronunciation class with Heleen from the English Center. She’s the student who took over the last 15 and a half hours of her brother-in-law’s English lessons, which he purchased two years ago. I am also going to be finished with the current package for my Brazilian student as well. I am not so sure he is going to continue, unfortunately. This coming weekend my Chinese kids are back on my schedule after a three-week hiatus. I’m not sure how I quite feel about it as I’m quite enjoying having Sundays to myself without the hour that dissects the day in the middle allowing me not to do anything at all. It was the best part of Jasper’s parents being here for three weeks. They are leaving on Friday and are coming to stay with me on Thursday which happens to be my birthday. We are going to go out to dinner as I do not feel like cooking on my birthday.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there’s more to come.