I am currently tutoring seven children in English.  I have never before had so many kids.  It is really great, they are all at different levels and they all have such different personalities.  The schedule is hectic though.  I have my normal job, then I tutor for four hours every evening. 

Sometimes on Sundays I get to bring the kids to church with me.  That has been a lot of fun.  The thing about Sundays is that their parents all go to the city to go to church and purchase groceries, so if I want to bring the kids with me I have to keep them until around 5 in the evening.  I've been taking them to a matinee after lunch.  They really like that.  We watched Ratatouille on Sunday.  It was a very cute movie and the children liked it very much.  One boy celebrated his birthday today and his mom got him a Ratatouille cake.  It was very cute.

Let me break down the families for you.  I have two boys that have been here already for a year.  This will be their second year here before they return home.  This will be the longest that I have ever tutored any children.  These two boys are 11 and 9.  The older boy is EXTREEMELY intelligent, so much so that he is bored by almost everything and he hates sports.  The younger boy is constantly in motion.  He is highly creative and loves sports, although his older brother occasionally does succeed in causing him to say that he does not like sports.  The oldest boy speaks good English and the younger boy speaks pretty good English, he still gets his words in the wrong order on occasion, but he is easily understood.

My youngest boy is 6.  He does not speak hardly any English at all.  So far he is trying to teach me Korean.  It is really funny.  I will say "envelope" and he will say "pan-jee" and this will go back and forth for awhile until I say "pan-jee" and then he will say "envelope".  He can also play Go Fish like nobody's business.  "Engie, do you have a shark?"  And he can say, "Engie, may I have the pencil, please?"  He knows a few other phrases very well.

The next family has one boy who is 11 and one girl who is 7.  They have an excellent vocabulary and very good pronunciation, they just lack in putting the sentences together in the proper way.  I expect that when school starts they will pick up new words and sentence structure very quickly.  While both kids enjoy class time, the boy wants to learn English so bad he can hardly contain himself.  He wants to go to MIT when he grows up, so he wants to learn English really well now.  His sister was very shy in the beginning and the father told me that he missed his daughter.  He said that normally she is very talkative and that since coming to America she has not spoken much.  We finally got her back to herself.  She is very cute and smart and has an excellent sense of humor.

The last family has two girls, one is 11 and the other is 8.  The older girl has a good vocabulary and constantly translates for her mom and younger sister.  I have to tell her occasionally to wait and let them try to figure out what I am saying.  The younger girl is very shy and does not speak much and it's not just English, she doesn't speak much in Korean either.  She is very quiet and is quite content to draw.  Both girls are excellent artists.  I've never really been around young kids who could draw so well.  I was having some trouble getting the younger one to speak so I started playing "Mother May I" after they understood how to play, I made her be the "Mother" so she would have to speak.  Since then I haven't had any trouble getting her to speak. 

All the moms with the exception of the one who has been here for a year, are very shy and afraid to speak.  I try to ask them questions.  The usually respond in one or two words.  They understand most of what I say, which is encouraging, but they don't want to sound silly when they speak.  So they don't.  The mom of the two boys isn't shy around me at all and is taking classes at a local university so that she can teach English when she returns home.  When she came to church she was very shy and didn't want to speak.  That was the first time I had ever seen her not be herself.  I want all of the moms to be comfortable with me.  I imagine that as they are here longer they will loosen up.  I hope so.

I haven't had much time to be online. I'm not getting home until nearly 10 pm with all the tutoring.  I apologize to everyone. I haven't had time to visit.  I am making no promises about visiting as I don't want to commit to too much.  I am very sorry.  I enjoy blogging very much and I miss the contact that I have with everyone, and reading about your lives and interests.  I'll try to post when I can and visit when I can.