I have had the room for a little over a week now and things are going great. We installed a new lock (I have my own key!), repaired the single electrical socket, and managed to coax a computer from the school's computer lab -- which I had to spend a few hours purging of viruses and different pieces of malware before it started functioning properly. I printed up 80 or so photos from different events that took place throughout this school year and I arranged them into a wall mural. It has proven to be a huge draw among the students, faculty, and even the cleaning staff -- although I haven't been successful in getting them to look without touching.
I have some big plans for this room and I hope that it will make this next school year much more productive for me. One of my top goals it to use it as a general hang-out for the English teachers -- a space where we can visit, drink tea, share resources, brainstorm, make lesson plans, and, most importantly, just speak English. I also think the room will help me in working directly with my more ambitious students in the afternoons. This past year I had several students who were really interested in English-related extracurricular activities as well as individual and group tutoring, but finding a suitable space was always an issue. Like I said, hopefully next year will be better.
Oh yeah, another cool thing is that I got my hands onto a well-known piece of language-learning computer software that is working like a charm. It's an incredible program and everyone I show it to loves it. The best part is that I am able to install it on pretty much any PC. I'm sure demand for the program will sky-rocket once word gets around that I have it.
PS - I have the program in three languages: English, Russian, and Spanish. Just today I had a weird feeling as I found myself studying Spanish in a school in the far-west of Mongolia while children were running through the halls screaming in Kazakh.
Ashlee designed the sign.
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