Vblurb

I've not been very good at keeping the blog up and going this year... I used to post every other day and now it's more like every month. Oops! Anyhow, I'm back with a new thing to say. (Apparently it means I only have a thing to say every month. That's kinda sad hu?)
Yesterday was my first day teaching English to medicine students. I was pretty happy before hand because I'd prepared the class well. It included talking about phonology, which I really like and I'd managed to find several different exercises that were linked thematically, which is cool. I even have related articles and a related House episode lined up for next week. So yeay. However, I was a bit nervous because I'd been told the students are very demanding. They all are (or should be) impressively good students and have a lot of work on their plate so they don't like feeling like they're losing their time or like you don't really know what you're talking about. Also, it was in a totally new place and I was worried I’d get lost or get there late etc. As it stood, I got there 7 minutes before the time of class but the door was locked :s Fortunately someone showed up to open it as I was running down stairs to get help. So that worked out ok.
The first thing to say is that the students aren’t very disciplined. They tend to chat a lot. So the first disciplinary action I took was to establish that I could speak louder than any of them, even put together, by using my “I’m on stage” projecting voice and shutting them all up through the sheer volume. Actually I didn't thing I could get that loud, I was quite impressed at myself for that one! That was cool, and it established I was crazy and therefore able to mess around more than they could, just cause I can (cause I got the power see, I’m the teacher mwahaha).
The class proceeded quite normally after that, we did some IPA (international phonetic alphabet) with their cardiology vocab, worked a bit on demonstratives (during both lessons they looked kind of bored even though I got them to participate) and then came the challenges. Because it was the first session, and it always ought to be more fun than others to try and get them hooked, doing a little game-like thing at the end is always good. So I gave them 5 minutes to learn the vocab of the heart on a diagram. Then they had to write down in IPA 5 words from the cardio vocab list, fill in a little multiple question test on demonstratives and fill-in a blank diagram of the heart. After which we counted points and the best team got awarded a prize: a pack of m’nms I’d picked up in the metro before coming to class.
As I was packing up just after chucking the sweets at the winner team, I was taken aback and completely surprised by the round a applause that suddenly gripped my belly. I’d never been clapped for at the end of a class before and since they’d looked a bit out of it during the lesson part proper I didn’t think it had gone that well but apparently they really liked it!
I spent the next few hours going "hu seriously, they clapped for me...?? how the hell did that happen?!" I think I’ll long remember this first class!
Of course maybe they just do that anyways but it still really touched me so there!