I give the worst gifts!

The one thing my kids know about me is I give the worst gifts. I'm the kind of guy that will give a woman something for the kitchen as a Christmas gift. One year my daughter got a flat tire and when I came to change it she didn't have a star wrench which I find is the easiest way to take a tire off. So, instead of getting her an AAA membership I bought her a star wrench for Christmas. For Sarah's birthday one year I told her I would pay to have her hair done for prom, she never wanted that done. Sometimes cost is a factor, but not always. I like to give gifts that I would like to receive, but that doesn't always work out.

I try to give gifts that are useful, but that doesn't always make a good gift at all times. What makes a good gift? I sure don't know the answer to that. I have been lucky in the past few years because I can ask my youngest daughter, Sarah, what to get everyone else. That is why I mess up with Sarah's gift, her sisters are not available to help me get gifts for Sarah. I'm worried about her high school graduation gift already and the school year hasn't even begun. If you ever thought you deserved a gift from me and you didn't get one I hope you understand now, and are thankful for it!!

A couple of months ago I had a student in my class that was from the East Coast. She had a lot of drama going on in her life and she and I became friends. I helped her find a job to supplement her income while she was here. We hung out once or twice and we became fast friends with each other. I haven't seen her for a few weeks and let me know a couple of days ago that she will leave this weekend. She wanted to buy me dinner before she left to say thanks for the help I gave her so I thought I needed to get her a gift.

Originally I tried to get out of meeting her so I didn't give a stupid gift that she would have to pretend to like then leave in her room when she left for her room. I then thought of, what I hope is, a great gift. I take a lot of pictures and one or two of them turn out really good. Since she is visiting here for only the summer I looked at my favorite photos and decided to give her two, one of San Francisco (where she stayed) and one of Monterey (my hometown). I figure if I give her the prints she can't complain they won't fit in her suitcase. When she gets home I hope she buys a couple of cheap frames and puts them on her wall. We will see what she does!

When I was in Germany I used to sell my pictures. People often ask me if I really took some of the photos I do, so I am thinking of trying to sell them again. One thing I will do is always carry a couple of my photos with me as I travel and give them out to people that are helpful to me.

    

On the road again ...

My office

This is the end of July and some schools have already begun. The rest of the schools will begin within 3 weeks. My schedule is starting to fill up. I already have scheduled a school in Tracy (1 hour), Dublin, Willows (2.5 hours), Sutter (3 hours), Susanville (5 hours), Redding (4 hours) and Toulumne (3 hours). I have mixed emotions about my job and how much I am on the road. I guess I could stay in my office and send other people to the places I go.

Office on the road

I could have other people do what I do at the schools, but they wouldn't do as good of a job as I do. I think it is a disservice to the schools I work with if I can't give them the best service. I want to help students make choices about their futures and I feel I can make the presentation better since I do it 150 times a year and other people only do it 4 or 5 times a year. My job is also to train the other presenters so I attend their presentations sometimes also. I have a little stress these days because the form I designed to do this and I have been training others for 3 years to use might be changed. There is a new person in charge of the program and he has decided to change to form since he didn't design it.

I have a meeting with the people that want to change my form tomorrow. When I asked them why they wanted to change my form they said they want the schools to be able to fill out the form without any help. I work for two different offices that offer this test and if these people want me to use their form I will just work for the other office more often. Since I do 80% of the work I think that will leave these guys in the lurch and they will have to have the schools fill out the form without any presentations, kind of a self fulfilled prophecy.

Running affects my knees

When people hear I run they always ask me if the running affects my knees. I tell them it does. They ask me why I keep running if it hurts my knees. I tell them the running doesn't hurt my knees it helps keep them healthy. They roll their eyes and don't believe me. People that hurt their knees running do a lot of running. I didn't run until I was 55, when my daughter encouraged me. I don't run long distances and I don't run fast. I try to run every day and I know if I do run every day I feel better in many ways. For the past 10 years my legs have been hurting me. I have had tendonitis often. Since I have started running I haven't had it, unless I stop running for a while.

I ran a race on June 12 and haven't really run a lot since then. I went for 3 weeks without running at all and my knee has been hurting for the last two weeks. It has hurt so much that at times I couldn't walk. It was a strange place, not in front of the knee, but it hurt on the inside of the leg at the knee. I had woken up one morning and it felt like I had pulled a muscle or ligament in my leg. I have been taking anti-inflammatory medication twice a day to help me. If I didn't take the pills I hurt, a lot! I haven't run because I didn't want to make my knee worse. I have another 5K I will run this Sunday so I know I need to practice this week.

 Two nights ago I started running. I didn't really run on Saturday, it was more like hobbling most of the way. Sunday I ran most of the way and the knee didn't really hurt me. Tonight, Monday, I ran and the knee didn't hurt me at all.
Running helps me in many ways. I still don't like running and every time I run I start with a frown and end with a frown. But, I know the running is helping me. It helps me sleep. It helps me lose weight. It helps my legs from hurting. It helps my digestion. It helps when I am worrying because I think about how much I hate running rather than anything else when I run.

So, the people that know me can always ask if I have been running lately when they notice a problem in my life!

Sixth day of July class (last day)

Today we finished!! We had 9 students make their final presentations. One of the students, Hyeji, is from Korea and had been here only 6 months. She was very worried about teaching an English class to native speakers. I had a student a few months ago that had the same problem so she taught everyone how to write their name in Korean. I suggested Hyeji do the same thing. She got excited when she realized how good that could be. She did a great job and it will be one of those classes that the other students will not forget. We had two classes on how to order food in a restaurant, since that was those students' background

We had a class on idioms, countable and uncountable nouns, telephone etiquette, how to give directions and expressing likes and dislikes. Another unforgettable presentation was done by Mark. He started out playing different types of music and asked students how the music made them feel. Then he said his lesson was on WEATHER. It was really fun and everyone laughed and was really interested in what the link to weather was going to be. He then went into how different weather made you feel. Then asked what kind of weather different music made you feel.

 A few students stated singing My Girl! It was a good day, but was long and a little monotonous. After everyone did their presentations I gave out the certificates. As I give them out I play Pomp and Circumstance. Students then do class/teacher evaluations and we go home. This class was a lot of fun. The students became very close friends and they will keep in contact with each other for a long time. I will help them get jobs as they need my help.

Fifth day of July class

On the Saturday of the third weekend I try to do two things, I want to show students different materials I use to teach ESL and let me decide how to evaluate material. I hope they come up with the idea that books should have good pictures and color. Pages should also not be too busy and look inviting. I show them a variety of general text books, but also text books dealing with idioms, writing, and writing. I also show them text books that deal with specific areas that deal with English like Hotel English, Business English, and Restaurant English. I also show how I use other types of books like children's books, Math books, atlases, and election material. This is something students usually really enjoy.

I have my students do a take home test on the week before this last weekend. On the Saturday of the last weekend we review that test and use it as a way to review everything we covered the previous two weekends. The test usually takes three hours for students to complete. Some students are not native speakers and those students take longer to complete the test. I take 2 hours to review the test to ensure everyone understands what we covered during the course. The bonus question for this test is, How should this sentence be punctuated: The panda eats shoots and leaves. That always leads to discussion.

This is also the day we discuss getting a job. How to write a resume and how to do a cover letter. I tell the students that when they send a resume they should send it as a PDF file with a picture attached to it. That way the receiver can't change their resume when they get it and most schools want a picture with the resume. If a student wants individual help they can email me and I will tell them what I think of their resume. If they know what country they want to go I tell them if I know someone teaching in that country right now and have them contact me if they want help in finding a job.

Then we started with the students' final presentations. Today we had 5 presentations. They did presentations on movies, colors, giving directions, foods, and frequency adverbs. They all were very good and the students did much better than they did the first two weekends. The time went very quickly and everyone had fun. I can't wait for the 9 more tomorrow!

Sleepless Nights

I often have nights I can't sleep. When that happens I usually realize I can't sleep because I haven't gone to bed. In college I used to go to bed at 10pm because I was bored and decided just to go to bed. My roommate got a little upset at it and then we ended up joking about it. These days many things will upset me and I won't want to go to bed, and won't sleep on time. Yesterday I found out I would have to pay for an accident I had on a business trip last November. I got upset and mad and nervous about my job and ... many things. I had never been questioned about the accident by the person investigating and that upset me.

 This morning I notified my company and told them I would protest the investigation and they said don't worry about it they would just pay for it.They reminded me that last November when this happened they had planned on paying for it and it wasn't a big deal. I feel sad for causing my company turmoil, even though they said it isn't a big deal. Two days ago I was talking to a commander and I knew we were talking about two different things and he didn't realize it. I eventually got my point across and he said he realized how passionate I was and that was good.
I think I get passionate about many things.

I think that is my problem, I am not rational about things I just get passionate. I think that is why people don't understand me, I don't think and behave rationally. Tomorrow is the last weekend of class this month. In the morning I teach and then in the afternoon my students be presenting their final lesson. I tell them to prepare for this lesson like it is their interview for a job. Many teaching jobs ask applicants to present a lesson to show their teaching technique and if my students have done it for me then when they have their interview they will do much better. Some students don't put much effort into it, but most students put their heart into preparing for the lesson.

I know some of my students that are doing their presentations tomorrow are so nervous tonight that it is hard for them to sleep. That makes me also not able to sleep. One student asked me when that jittery feeling goes away. I said it goes away when teaching isn't important to you and you don't care about your students. On the night before the first day of class each month I have problems sleeping. I know my class changes many people's lives and I am nervous that I won't care enough to do my best. So, it is hard to sleep. I always hope that it won't affect me so much, but then again that feeling makes me know I care.

So, how to sleep? I know if I have some alcohol I sleep easier. I used to always have some beer in my house so I could drink it before I went to bed, but I usually had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I usually try to avoid caffeine in the evening, but that is more passive than aggressive. Running helps. So, now I add that to my list why I need to run every day, and not put it off till tomorrow. I usually run between 7 and 9 so it isn't too dark or too cold. Tonight I ran at 10 because I know I need to do it. I have always said I don't like running and I still feel that way, but I also don't like getting up and going to work every day, but both are necessary evils.

How to make money in the stock market

I am not a stock market expert. In fact, I don't own any stocks. I had invested in mutual funds many

My stocks today

years ago, but I lost a large percentage of that money so I decided never to do that again. Now, that said, let me finish this. I just didn't want anyone arguing with me that what I'm suggesting isn't sound. This is just my theory and how I developed it.
A few months ago someone asked me if I had $10,000 to put in the stock market what I would do with it. I said I would pay off bills not invest it. She said to think about it and I did. I went to www.HowTheMarketWorks.com and invested $10,000 in virtual money. On May 14 I invested safely in Market Funds. I chose the aggressive fun and the non aggressive fun and invested in both equally. I also invested in some stock that sounded like a good idea. One was one that dealt with medical buildings and the other was a gold mining company. Both seemed like they would be growth funds because of what is going on in the economy.

Over the last 30 days

The mutual funds have steadily been loosing money since then and the two stocks I chose were not doing very well. Since this was virtual money I thought I would experiment for a while. I made some good choices, and some bad. I sold 75% of the mutual funds since I needed some money to "play" with and got rid of the gold mining stock since it was doing so bad. I found something in my mail box that said that penny stocks were the best to make fast money. It seemed like a good omen since I just happened to stumble on this piece of mail. I put $2000 in that stock, they suggested I buy at $.50 and sell at $1.50. That sounds good to me. Two days after I made that buy the stock was at $.10 and I thought it couldn't go any lower so I bought more and it is now $.04. So, I just left that stock alone since it is only worth $98 now. (I learned from that not to think God is talking to me through mail.)
I also realized I was seeing a lot of Tesla cars on the road these days and thought that was a good omen. I bought tesla stock on July one and it has increased 24% in a month.
About two weeks ago I thought about what someone had told me once. He said most people are looking for the stock at its lowest point and then buy it before it goes up. He said when a stock is going up you should buy it, thinking it will continue to go up and when a stock is going down you should sell it thinking it will continue going down. I don't know if that sounds reasonable or not, but I have been working under that concept for two weeks and have almost made up the $2000 I lost in my stupid mistake of buying penny stock. Every night I look at the most active stocks (http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/most-active.aspx) and look at which stocks have gone up the most that day. I buy it and then if it goes down 2 days in a row I sell it. This has worked over the past 2 weeks and am beginning to have confidence in it.

Teachers need to talk less

San Francisco, CA

I often tell my class of conversational English teachers to not talk very much and let the students have time to speak more in class. I tell them that the whole reason the students take the class is so they can speak English. If the students don't get a change to talk then why should they come to class? Today on the radio a talk show host had a Math teacher and he wrote a book that says all teachers should talk less. He said that they should teach their lesson then have a dialog with the students so they can process what the lesson was about.

Carmel, CA

It made me think about what my high school age daughter said about how she learned. She said that in her advanced Math class no one really understands the concept until they go home and they call and text each other asking questions until they understand. In most classrooms teachers discourage talking and want students to do their own work. Maybe we should encourage small group discussions so students can help each other understand. I'm not saying to allow chaos in a classroom or let students get off subject and just joke around. A teacher should be a guide to the students to learn what they need to learn so they can do their homework and pass the tests.

Napa, CA

I am not a big advocate of making changes in Education. I believe that is one of the biggest problems with the American Education System, we are always trying to make changes and every time we make a change the learning decreases instead of increases. We put so much emphasis on critical thinking and pull away from memorization that we don't know what to think about, but are doing it critically. What a bunch of hogwash! But, I do think this Math teacher has a good idea to tell teachers to talk less and let the students tell them why they don't understand.

Lake Tahoe, CA

Life Changes

This week I have been helping a friend summarize her 20 year military career into a one page resume. It reminded me of when I got out of the service and realized the mistakes I made and the right things I had done. Retiring from the military is like graduating from college, you have hit the pinnacle in one part of your life and you have to move on. Often you are moving on to the bottom of a new occupation. She has worked as a recruiter for the last nine years, including 3 years in the Army and 6 years in the National Guard. She has also done other jobs to assist recruiters in that time. How does that help her get a job in the logistics field?

I guess some people have natural progressions in their job experiences, but I wonder how common it is. It goes with the same question of how many people get jobs that are the same field as their college major. This recruiter started in the Army as in logistics and then finished in recruiting. When we did her resume we wrote half a page on the logistics she worked in and about an eighth of a page on what she did in recruiting even though the two jobs took an equal portion of her career.

skylight

I think everyone that has had a career over twenty years realizes it is hard to summarize all their jobs they have had in their progressive career. It would be kind of sad if they had the same position over all those years.
What goes through our minds as we change jobs, whether it is our decision or not. We are elated that we have a new opportunity, but scared of the unknown. It would be nice if we just made the same money all through our life even when we changed jobs. Some people would be happy with that, and some would be upset because they want to make much more money than they did in their old job.

Life is about change. My friend is deciding when that change will happen. Another friend knows that the military will force him how in a few months and he will wait until the last minute when they force him to leave. I think the best thing to do is move on when you know it is inevitable. It is like driving on ice you are supposed to accelerate so your car has control, rather than put on your breaks so your car totally loses control. Look for the next opportunity rather than be content. It is like investing and when you are content then you start to go down rather than up in revenue. When you know you have to change then embrace it and make the move. The worse thing is regretting that it wasn't your decision.

Fourth day of July class (How to teach reading and writing)

The second weekend on Sunday is the fourth day of class. When the class starts I give every student a paper with twelve squares on it and in each square is a symbol. I have the students draw a picture inside each square using the symbol in their picture. After they all finish I pair them up and have them talk about the picture they drew. As they are doing that I write on the board what each of the squares represent.

explanation of what each means

I then stop them from talking and explain that this is a psychology test and have them write the squares meaning in the square and then I put them in groups of 4 to discuss what they drew more. After a few minutes I talk about how I use this in an ESL classroom and it stimulates conversation. I emphasize that a conversation classroom should have a lot of conversation. Everyone enjoys this exercise and then we are ready to talk about how to teach reading, writing, idioms, pronunciation, and how to give tests. I then joke that I sometimes have the girl I date do this exercise, which isn't really true. This exercise comes from a fun book called Recipes for Tired Teachers.

After the class does this they are excited to learn more about how to use games and activities to teach English as a Second Language. On this day we start with looking at how to teach reading to ESL students. During my college days I took a class on teaching reading. One of the things I remember about that class was when the teacher talked about oral reading. He asked the question of why we have oral reading, one student reading to the rest of the class while the rest of the class follows along in their book. We looked at each other, we had never thought about it before because that is the way we always did things in class. We do oral reading so we know the students are paying attention and really reading.

We do oral reading so we can assess if the students can read the book. The teacher reminded us about how we feel if we struggle with the reading. He reminded us how when one person is reading some of us read ahead, some of us day dream, and some of us joke about the person reading. He said we shouldn't have oral reading in Elementary school. I teach my students that are future ESL teachers not to have their students do oral reading. I have them read a paragraph as we usually do in classrooms one person at a time. I then point out the things that my college teacher told us. I then have them read in the classroom in a different way.

I have them read the same paragraph in pairs. One person reading one sentence and the other reading the next. Then alternating through the whole paragraph. If this is a conversation ESL class I want to maximize the amount of speaking each student does in the classroom. This way of reading helps each student speak as much as possible in class. As the students read to each other the teacher goes around and helps each one as they read with pronunciation and comprehension. Then we talk about using newspapers in the classroom. I ask people who have lived in other countries if they have seen newspapers that are written in English in those countries. Most countries have English language newspapers and I always recommend to use that as reading material because it is more relative to student's lives.

My daughter teaching a class

Then we move onto writing. I have all my students listen very closely to me, I make it very dramatic. I tell them, as I look into all their eyes, NEVER TEACH A WRITING CLASS! I say it again and explain that when you teach a writing class you do more work outside the class than inside the class because you have to grade all the papers. Remember the high school English teachers would always have stacks of papers to grade behind their desk? Why would you submit yourself to such torture? Now that I have that out of the way I teach how to teach writing since we all have to do it even if we don't want to. It is hard to correct ESL writing because we don't know what they want to say. We don't know the tense they want to use when they are using several tenses in once sentence and one paragraph.

I introduce a book I ran across many years ago called 26 Steps. I have used it for over 20 years, but have never met another teacher that has even heard of it. I like using this book because it guides the students into making the changes in their writing step by step. It starts easy where they change a to an, then more difficult where they are changing genders, then it gets more difficult until the last step they are rewriting the entire passage. This is a way where the students can improve their writing and I can work with each one of them individually. I tell them I also have my students write a journal, but not more than 3 sentences a day and I correct it at the end of each week.

I also go over idioms and different ways to introduce them. I tell my students they need to have their students memorize idioms just like they memorize vocabulary words. Then we talk about how to teach pronunciation and it is often done with a mirror more than a recorder. ESL students need to see what they are doing wrong, because they can't always hear a difference between the sounds.
In the afternoon students teach their own 15 minute lesson and today they presented games they learned.