The end of another semester -- almost. Students got a kick out of Sankt Nikolaus filling their shoes with candy -- yes, even adults students. They teased me, saying that I played St. Nikolaus just before giving them their course evaluations to fill out, in order to garner better evaluations. There was a real good atmosphere today in class, and I left hoping that the final exam will be a good experience for them, a culmination of a semester of learning -- writing about themselves in German, reviewing the "cultural sentences" and intercultural communication blogs to come up with a sense of how you explain your own culture to a German or vice veresa, listening and reading, hopefully with a sense that they can indeed make sense of the language when it comes their way or they go out looking for it. One of my goals is to help them develop good reading strategies, especially for the web, for many of them will continue German, if at all, on the web.
In fact, next semester I'm going to work even more on helping students navigate the web in another language, as well as help them become more expert at determining the reliability of sites, or for what they are reliable. I'm looking forward to starting again -- starting some changes, continuing some others, without overburdening myself and the students.
Well, it's off to yoga again -- on a full stomach after a pretty darn good holiday party. My spirits are up. My attitude is re-framed, focusing on what can be done, and turning away from what can't. That will be my New Year's resolution, too.
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