The Kang Xian agent called my wife with another assignment in Yun-Lin; a school wanted to
start a conversation enrichment program and I was recommended. I was not sure how I would do it because I didn’t want to spend any more
time teaching; Yun-Lin is an hour’s drive away.
My private high school student came over at his regular time for a tutorial. He hadn’t read any Death Star novel since the last time because his new cellphone needed the app
link to my Kindle to get the copy. He also didn’t have access to the “word wise” feature Kindle offers. Not to worry. I gave him a teaser of
chapter 18-20 and asked him to read up for the following week.
After I checked and went over
his Précis homework, I copied one
page from the selection, whiting-out every fifth word, and asked him to supply
appropriate fill-ins for the cloze exercise. He had never seen a cloze like
this; he is used to having multiple-choices in public school textbooks and
tests and “Vocabulary Growth” exercises in American
Rhetoric and once we did a Mad Libs with fill-in solicited based on parts
of speech for a humorous result. Next, I introduced “Unit 5: The Murder of the
Earl of Hereford” from React-Interact and
went over the clues to solving the case and the six questions he must answer in
writing.
At 12:30, the publisher's agent picked us up and dropped us off at a middle school that needed a native English speaking
judge for their students' speech contest. That evening, I had a tutorial to do; ninety minutes.
Friday, there would be a singing contest I was to judge. There were twenty-two ninety-minute
tutorials and more judgments and enrichment in the coming weeks.
The day before, I had listened to twenty-seven
students in Li-Ming MS give speeches about three different topics. It was nothing new and not interesting enough to write a blog about, but it was fun. I tutored one student in the
evening.
I listened to seventeen classes of choral singing and choreography of popular songs at a Miaoli middle school on the
mountaintop I'd visited a few years before. The show I judged with two other in-house
teachers was two hours long but we were gone from 12:30 until returned at 5:30 because of the traffic!
It took ninety minutes to get home. I think I was paid for two hours. I'm not writing a blog about each event anymore as, like the essay recitation a few days ago, nothing special happened and I
had written about them before. They all run together in my mind.
One student's family forgot to say she wasn't coming
to a tutorial; she would come that morning instead. Another came on time
and did all the homework. He would come that Thursday as next Saturday was a
make-up day at school for everyone, a day on which I
would officiate at a spelling bee.
I had to write down what I taught my four private
students so I didn't forget. That evening, I checked a boy's CC re-write (he used the patterns to tell me about his propensity
to fix computers by watching You-Tube) and gave him a new one, 'Computer
Buffs', to change from plural to singular. I also heard him re-tell True Stories
'TV repairmen' from picture strips. I introduced short 'e' and quizzed him on
long and short 'a' words dictated. He hadn't studied because he'd forgotten his Quizlet name so I reminded him and
asked him to write sentences with ten new words. That evening, I would teach a high school student that had homework to write a complete summary and explain how we played the board game Scruples. He was supposed to finish Death Star up to chapter twenty and
go over the 'word wise' selections. 
That afternoon my wife and I went to the middle
school behind Hola furniture to hear their English choral competition. The high school student came by one evening; he was spending the
night alone while his mom was at the hospital with his uncle; his stepfather was off to Japan again, He still had two pages of math homework to do. We started
"The Missing Jewels" unit from React-Interact
and I introduced the technique of role plays (improv) by watching a YouTube
"Ted Talk" video. He was tired from getting a flu shot earlier in the
day and being hungry so I toasted him a slice of bacon-cheese baguette during
the break and went into a Précis before sending him on his way. 
I also didn't have latkes to share with the staff of a middle
school that afternoon. I showed them the "Seasons Greetings" and "Judaism; My Faith" PPT's; the lighting of the candles and how to play dreidel; but no latkes.
The 'in-service teacher training' entertainment of
"Seasons Greetings" PPT went well in
South-borough. Only after I arrived did the agent remind us I was at the
school last spring for a similar event. After prying, I found out it was a
PPT on "Seven Days in NYC" that inspired the faculty of EFL teachers to
ask for me back. I was prepared to offer them any PPT I had and glad I didn't
make a fool of myself by doing the NYC PPT again. This event, for twelve
teachers cramped in a little room with exercise equipment and smart-board, required
participation; I asked the teachers 
to comment or write a question about a
number of slides I presented and made it a contest with two teams awarding points for complete correct responses later asking them to read their comments. In the past, I presented to a mum audience; this
helped get the staff involved. With ten minutes left in the second forty-five minute
period, we played two rounds "Into Reported Speech" on the day's topic before
awarding six gifts the publisher agent had prepared, randomly. 
My December holiday assignments continued one afternoon with the third English choral competition I had the pleasure of
judging. I rode there on my bicycle and met the agent at the
school entrance. We were not sure if the high school student was coming to Saturday's
tutorial. It has really been a wonderful month that started with the English choral competition in Miaoli, continued with a spelling bee, an 'in-service training' for a dozen EFL teachers, another choral competition; I was getting the dates mixed up. The pleasant treats of choral, recitation, and spelling bee contest judging afforded me, in the winter, with music and books. Who needed a New Year's Eve party or Hanukkah dinner? The students’ performances were a treat.
Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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