Our First ESL Class at University Of Massachusetts

It was such a pleasure for me this morning to teach in a modern facility with everything I needed at my fingertips. It goes without saying that a teacher like a carpenter must have the tools of his trade to deal with and they have to be appropriate for the class that he/she is facing...and what a class I was facing this morning!
Let me introduce them to my blog readers from around Worcester and the world. All of the class members work in scientific research of some kind. They come from China, Taiwan, India, Poland, Korea, and Israel. They live in Worcester, Shrewsbury, Leominster, and one man lives in Rhode Island and does his research at U.Mass Boston (I think).
I know that the class will be reading this blog (post) tonight because I gave them the web address this morning. I was not going to do that for another week because I wanted them (I still do!) to write me e-mails, but since "the cat was out of the bag" and one student knew the web address, I had to tell everybody.
We did a lot in our first class. I introduced myself and explained my qualifications. Then I took each student's name and wrote it PHONETICALLY on the whiteboard. In the process I introduced the SCHWA pronunciation symbol and its most important use in English pronunciation. I explained the "five hats of the schwa". (You need to review this with an American dictionary.(Look it up on google if you want.) I talked a little bit about how to navigate this blog and I will tell you more about this as the class goes on. We then went on to explain the snowstorm policy while at the same time using the idiom "THATS THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES!" (Do you remember the difference between an idiom and a cliche?) We did some reading. (Lakale, I know you will read this. I used your story about your Chinese friend, both the uncorrected and the corrected version. It worked out perfectly because there are a number of Chinese people in the class.) (With your permission, I hope to use one of your other stories also. Is that okay with you?) Next I had the class fill out the Student Profile Survey (homemade) that I dreamed up to find out what their goals were for the class. Here I found that some were a little mixed up in math when it came to percentages! I asked how much time you wanted to spend on grammar, pronunciation, conversation, public speaking, reading, etc. Well, some people came up with 125% and 150% for time when the time for the class cannot add up to more than 100%! Oh well, a little schisophrenia never hurt anyone. (Is that how you spell that?) In any event, I will read carefully your surveys that you gave me and plan the best program that I can for you. I will go with the majority without neglecting the minority. Now, write me an e-mail and tell me what you learned today about such things as the schwa and "ist" and "goals" or forget all that and JUST TALK.........(I need to see your mistakes to know what you need to learn...okay?)..............Mr.Leo