19 March
Today I taught at the school in Thong Lor. My “class” consisted of one girl. She was 23 years old, tall, white skinned and beautiful. Her spoken English was very good and her written English was very bad. Last time I’d taught her, she’d told me that she didn’t want to go to Australia because she was afraid of Europe. It was “too big”.

Today, we were learning simple past tense.

“What did you do yesterday?” I asked.

She fiddled with her pencil.

“What did I do yesterday?” she repeated.

“Yes,” I said pleasantly. “What did you do yesterday?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Erm, well. Because we are practicing the past tense.”

And I pointed to the examples in the open book in front of her.

“Oh. Yesterday I wake up and then I do something secret….”


Next was describing people.

“What does your mother look like?” I asked.

“What does my mother look like?” she repeated.

“Yes, what does your mother look like?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because…we are practicing describing people.”

And I pointed to the examples in the open book in front of her.

“Oh…I don’t know. I can’t remember.”