Clippings

By: aromaproductions on 4:59 PM

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Teaching English As A Foreign Language

My job is an interesting one.  I teach English as a foreign language at two private schools for adults. One is the Migros Klubschule, the other is Volkshochschule Beider Basel.  The second is an arm of the University of Basel.  My students range from age 18 to 85.  Both schools offer a range of languages from Arabic to Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Thai, Hungarian, English, of course, to Scandinavian  Languages.  No African languages though. But Latin/Romance languages  of course.  The most popular languages are  German which people need to work in Switzerland and English which people need for  traveling and sometimes for work. I also teaching English conversation. One  class lasted ten years and ended after most of the students ( ranging from age  55 -85) decided it was time to retire.  Some were too old to participate meaningfully in conversations, the text was getting too difficult, and they were at a standstill, no longer able to progress because of age related illnesses. Some have since died. They pushed themselves until they no longer could.  They say the more languages you learn, the better to ward off memory related diseases.

At present I have a very interesting class.  It is not my typical class filled with Swiss students. This class is new and has students from many nationalities. They come from Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Morocco,  Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey and Switzerland.  It creates a special dynamic especially when it comes to talking about how cultures are different regarding food, marriage and customs in general.

I teach mornings and evenings from 6-10 p.m. And in between I prepare lessons for my classes that range from absolute beginners to Intermediate conversation where we read short stories and news articles and discuss them.  They learn a lot of new vocabulary  and idiomatic expressions in the process.  It is a very interesting job.  

Talk to you soon.

Clippings II

Miss Mavis buried,

we sort out stuff

she hoarded.

Mementos are her life-story.

Newspaper clippings of her engagement

and assorted social events,

dried brittle roses she cut and preserved

from her prize-winning garden,

a fleece pullover made from

wool sheared off Australian sheep,

reels of films featuring snippets of

cartoons shown before the movies

her husband featured at his theatre.

We chat, the news scraps in hand,

and recall the time Mavis was enraged

and charged Lilly with a broomstick,

clipped her wings after she

sneaked out to see a boy one night.

Mom laughs that Mavis had

rushed at her with a frying pan

after she stood her ground 

against Mavis’ tampering

in people’s affairs.

Mavis' photo beams back.

There’s an effusive smile filled

with a youth we’d never seen.

Sharp lively eyes gaze from

a face empty of confrontation.

Nostalgia sweeps us.

We promise to preserve

what she deemed precious-

her life's clippings.

Althea Romeo-Mark

(c) 2008