After my adventure with the Spanish medical system this past weekend--helping a friend who got ill (and is now better)--I'm happy to report that I've safely begun my fourth and final week of the course. I've survived the transition from the Intermediate students to the Beginners class, and have successfully taught two 1-hour lessons. Yesterday I was working on question forms and got into a bit of a tough spot clarifying the difference between "how much" and "how many"...can you explain that one?
The difference is that "how much" is used with uncountable nouns and "how many" with countable nouns. I tried explaining the difference using the example the students gave: a bag of rice vs. a grain of rice. After a few minutes of deer-in-the-headlights looks, I had to have my tutor, Roger, to bail me out. He drew two wine glasses on the white board and counted "one, two" then drew wine filling the glass and said "what's that?--one wine? two wine? Uh uh" and the students seemed to understand. It turns out that Spanish (and all the Romance languages) have similar structures and the students were just reflecting on the confusion of their own languages as well as in English.
*SIGH*
The rest of the lesson went well and I got generally positive feedback from my peers, my tutor, and the course assessor who monitored the teaching practice yesterday as well. I've got one more lesson to go and that's on Thursday. Today, (being Tuesday) I've got to assemble the bits of my third and fourth papers and get them submitted by the end of today and tomorrow morning, respectively.
Back to work now. :) I'll post the tale of the medical system later this week when I've got the papers out of the way.
Wow! This has flown by. I agree with the previous caller who nominated you for sainthood.
Thinking of you, P