Hi All — Here I am in the UAE again!  This trip, I’m teaching boys and girls at the Al Ain program for Deaf children American Sign Language and English as a Second….no, wait….4th language.  THEY are teaching me Emirati Sign Language, and the true meaning of patience, mixed in with a lot of great fun!  You imagine you have frustrations getting teens to leave their phones untouched during class?  Forget about it!  I have one young lady who slips her mobile, with ongoing email…messaging… whatever…between pages in her textbook.  I look over and you could drive a Range Rover through the gap it leaves.  Then there’s her friend who “hides” her full-sized iPad between the pages.

Well, they’re full of mischief, but when focusing on language acquisition and reading and writing, they do excellent work!  The 8 girls are between 14 and 21.  For this 8-week program, the four oldest drive in from home to attend the 2-hour class Sunday through Thursday.  The others are full-time students in the Al Ain program which goes through 9th grade. They take all the usual high school courses, plus Arabic language and Islamic faith classes.  They, like the 6 boys who come to my class regularly, hope to continue their high school learning in the U.S.  They are all quite capable!

This is my first posting.  I’ll publish it now, and play around with adding photos this afternoon.

Bye for now,

Patty P

Teacher of the Deaf, ESL instructor