9-17-02

A must-read message

Greetings,

I'll try to get this written and in the mail tonight before I run completely out of "oomph".

I have to alter our schedule. I'm going to have to set deadlines back at least a week. For you first semester students, your first round of exercises will now be due by Saturday, Sept. 28, and your first exam will have to be taken by Thursday, October 3.

There are several reasons for this action.

1. Most of you are dreadfully behind. I don't know whether you are finding the material difficult or whether you just aren't putting in the time. I don't expect your homework to be perfect, and you aren't graded on the perfection of your exercises. The game goes this way: You try. You foul up occasionally. I point out what you did wrong. You go back and strengthen your weak areas. Etc, etc. etc. This is the learning process. I will penalize errors, however, when we get to exam time. Until them, screw up all you want. But put in your time. Put in the effort. Even the brightest among you can't get the material without working at it.

2. Several people have started the class late and will find it impossible to meet the original deadlines. I would like to keep the group pretty much together as much as possible so that I can send out meaningful group messages about the material we are working on instead of having to send individual messages to people working at a dozen different levels. If I had unlimited time, I could do it differently. But my schedule is tight.

3. Perhaps the most important reason is that I am behind. The only work that I've been able to do on your classes for the last several days is to correct your homework assignments. I started to poop out nearly a week ago and was nearly totally incapacitated by the weekend. A bad tooth started pumping infection into my system and then went on a veritable rampage Friday afternoon, leaving me with a throbbing tooth, a splitting headache, and a swelling face. By Sunday, my face was swollen from my mouth to my eye. And, of course, I didn't have a dentist in Denver yet. I lucked out Monday morning and got right in to see the first dentist I contacted. And I found a good one. I'm minus a tooth, my mouth is still sore, and my fact is still puffy, but things are getting better. The problem now is that my system is still fighting the infection, and I run out of gas in a hurry. I went in to my "day" job today and had to leave at lunchtime to come home and rest. The dentist gives me about 10 for the infection to clear out of my system, but I'm hoping that I will have a lot more energy sooner than that.

The reason that I have to extend your deadlines is that I haven't been able to finish your materials for the next lesson or get the exams sent off to Christine. I still have pages under revision and tapes in progress, and I don't know just how long it will take me to get back up to full productivity. I'm hoping that the one-week delay will enable me to get everything online and tapes sent to you.

For you second-semester students, I will get back in touch with you in the next few days and help get your programs back on track.

I'm sure that most of you are grateful for a delay for any reason, and I will certainly understand if you are experiencing a degree of joy over my situation. :-)

Keep sending me your homework, and I'll get it back to you. Certain error patterns are developing, and I will start sending some group messages giving further explanation on some of the sticky points.

It's not important that you get everything the first time through, but it is important that you put in the effort. I'm been at this for a long time, and I can teach you this "stuff" if you will work with me. In over 35 years of language teaching, I have never had a student put in his time and effort and not pass the course. The people who fail are the ones who fail themselves by not working.

That will do it for tonight, I guess. And it's past my bedtime, so I'm gone.