nate on teaching

Our first English class was a success! We had three students: Fahid (28) is a dentist, Malik (25) is a computer engineer, and Isham (29) is SIAL's computer engineer. Fortunately they all have a solid foundation in English, so we can focus on speaking (rather than basic grammar, for example). Last night we discussed our jobs, families (Isham has 11 siblings), and goals for the class. We spoke at length about dentistry, which is incredibly cheap here; to fill a cavity with composite it costs around 3000YR ($15), which we might have to take advantage of soon (Morgan's tooth had a run-in with a bone fragment hidden in a hamburger last night). We discussed the effects of qat on teeth, and Fahid informed us that the pesticides, not the qat itself, destroy the tooth. He also told us about the miswak, a kind of branch Yemenis use as a toothbrush. The stick is about the size of a middle finger and can be chewed on or used to rub the gums and teeth. It's minty-flavored and has "120 health benefits." And with the engineers we discussed Windows Vista (and how much it sucks), Apple computers, programming, networking, computer history, and the like. Each night we will pick a different topic and will focus on idioms, vocab, pronunciation, etc. Tonight's topic is the history of Yemen, which is a bonus for me as I only have a western view of the history and it will be nice to hear about the civil war from people who were alive during the time (all of our students were all in high school). I think that the class will be a lot of fun for all of us; these guys have a great sense of humor and I think that we will all become great friends.