I’m so sorry for missing yesterday’s ROW80 update.

It’s been crazy busy here and I completely forgot to update my blog.

What’s been happening? Well, first of all I got invited to a “Rock ‘n’ Roll Reading Show Benefit” in April. Yes, you read that right.

It’s to save Cow Club, a 30-year-old cultural institution in my hometown Solingen. They’re really active in the local music scene, organising concerts and festivals, but also readings, workshops, comedy nights and exhibitions. The city cut their funding this year, so benefits are being held to save Cow Club.

This Rock ‘n’ Roll Benefit, entitled “All Was Dark Yet Splendid” includes readings by local authors, including my good friend Lilian Muscutt, and rock music. Reading & Rock ‘n’ Roll – how awesome is that??

The studying is going well. I’m a little behind in the modules, though the ones with deadlines on Sunday are done.

Still not sure whether the article I’m basing my current paper on is actually fulfilling the criteria, but the assignment brief was not very clear and with limited access to online journals (i.e. “I’m not paying $30 for a 10-page article from 1993”) I’m sticking to what I can get.

Remember when I told you I’d be giving English tuition soon? Well, I started yesterday. I know my student and she’s lovely, though I’m more than a bit appalled by the standard of English taught in local schools here. Now, I know that my school’s bilingual classes meant we had a greater focus on English, but in Year 11, after at least 6 years of learning the language (and studying it every other day at school) you should be able to conjugate verbs correctly. You should know basic vocab and be able to read 200 words out loud without too many problems.

I felt sorry for her though. Her teacher had really discouraged her. Told her that her new tutor would have to start from scratch with her.

And I’ve been on the receiving end from teachers like that. So I tried to encourage her. It seems to me that she rushes into sentences without thinking about them first and ends up getting words and letters all jumbled. So I told her to take it slow. Read the words in her head before reading them out loud. And the second go-through went a lot better. And her spoken English is more fluent.

So here’s my strategy: I’ll give her grammatical exercises. But I’ll also get her to read out loud and speak English with me. If any issues come up when we’re talking, I can point them out and explain.

Man, it’s been years since I taught.

That’s all I’ve got time for. More on Sunday! Here are the other ROWers, though.