Second Semester: "How do you say 'bald,' with love?"

I'm a full week into my second semester, and so far it's going really well! My classroom dynamics are definitely different this semester: I have 2 design classes at the Intermediate 2 level with really energetic and creative students which is really exciting. (Although it means more work for me because I have to come up with a lot more interactvie activities!) To review the second day of class I had the students get into groups and make up skits. They were awesome! One group made up a song and sang it in front of the class, another group acted out Alladdin, and another group made up a cooking show. We had a whole discussion in class, in English! about "green" buildings and how they are all hoping to design them someday. I also have a class of Basic 2 students, with a lot of my students from last semester. I had a lot of students ask to take my class specifically, which is always a little ego boost :) And it's exciting to see that they're enthused about learning...finally!! To practice describing physical characteristics I used magazine pictures and had the students describe the people. This was really exciting as most of the class (17/18) are guys, and People magazine tends to feature women more than men. I think sexy was the most frequently used vocabulary word that day...We're listening to Flogging Molly today to practice conditional consequence phrases. We'll see how they feel about Irish punk...
I feel much more at ease and prepared with one semester already under my belt, and I think that will make my students more comfortable too. Allegra and I have started what we call La Mesa Inglesa (a bad translation of English Table). Every other week we invite our students to meet us at a local bar, and we share beer and conversation. So far we've had a pretty good turnout (imagine that...) and the students have said it really helps. I don't know if they're just saying that so we keep drinking beer with them, or what, but it really does help the fluency aspect of speaking. All in all I'm really excited about teaching again, and almost everyday I come home on a high about my job and my little kiddies :)