Teaching & Food

Time flies.
It was late september when I was introduced to 16 new students who enrolled in my Thai Cookery Classes. After a long summer break it took quite a while to adjust your frame of mind and your thoughts into teaching mood. Sometime I wonder my motivation for teaching these new students...but they want to learn how to cook and I want to teach them how to cook. So the wavelength exists. Before the students, all eager, with their apron tied neatly on their waists, start to cook, I explored this wavelengths further by asking them to work in a pair, give them list of questions...what exactly do they want to learn? what are their learning objectives? What made them attracted to Thai food etc etc.
Hence the ice-breaking has started. A tall, grey-haired 73 year old man was paired with a French mother of 37 year old; a Pilipino nanny whose command of English of good was paired with a young man from Canada; a Japanese housewife with limited English with an Indian mother of 3 teenagers; a Lebanese woman whose husband is a business with a young and handsome French man, etc, etc...Within five minutes the class atmosphere and ambience began to warm up with exchanges of questions. The class began to glow with bubbles of conversations. Meanwhile I gathered all my thoughts and teaching resources. I have my information regarding the College, the safety and health regulation, student handbooks, scheme of work, lesson plans and recipes ready. My kitchen technician was also ready with her tasks as kitchen assustant. She has to get all the tools, equipment and utensil we needed for the class ready. All the cookers and stoves are function well without any problem.

'Right!' I could hear my voice through the microphone.
'Can we all gather together in the front here and let us introduce ourselves'....

so it started.....