My Favourite Class

I will write about my favourite class at my school.

I will use very simple English, so my students can read it.

After my father's wedding, and traveling around Canada in July, I came back to Korea. That August, I had all new classes. One was PreEfl: the lowest level.

Pre EFL classes can be fun, if the students are nice. If the students are shy, or something, it can be a really, really hard class.


This class had some older students. Before coming to this school, I taught small children. Most of my students are about age 40 or younger, or they speak English very very well, from living abroad. I thought, "maybe this class will be really hard."

Instead, I met two ladies.

Their names are Betty







And Veronica.






They don't really look like that.

Betty and Veronica are famous characters from a comic book called "Archie". They are best friends. Betty and Veronica are also two ladies in my English class. They have the same names as the girls in the comic, by coincidence.

"Archie" comic books are very popular in North America. Archie is a high school boy, and he likes two girls.


Veronica is beautiful, and her father is rich, but she is also a princess, and she always changes her mind. Some days she likes Archie, but other days, she likes a boy named Reggie, because Reggie has a nice car.




Betty is the sweet, kind girl next door. She is honest and simple, and she loves Archie. She never changes her mind, and Archie loves her, too, but when Veronica calls, Archie forgets about good and faithful Betty.

Archie is a flake. (flake means a person I can't trust)


In my class, Betty is a sweet, generous lady who studies really hard. I know she studies hard because often, when I teach her a phrase or a word, she uses that phrase or word in our class a few days later. That shows that she studies hard at home, after class, too.

She is very impressive.

Betty studies English because her grandchildren live in America, and she wants to talk to them on the phone, and visit them there. I think that is the best reason I ever heard for studying English. I think about Betty's grandchildren, and it is very touching to see her working so hard to improve her English.

Here is a picture of Betty, on the right. Her classmate Christine is on the left. Christine was new last month. She asks good questions.

Veronica is a very sweet, Catholic lady. Her friend Misuk also comes to class (but she was absent the day we took pictures). Veronica is studying English to help her husband with his business. Her husband wants to work with more international clients and partners. Often Veronica helps her husband at the office.

Veronica is very kind, and she always sees a person's good parts. She always has a big smile, and she really appreciates her classmates, her family, and good things in life. Veronica leads a bible study in her apartment block, and she loves talking about the things she likes doing. She has a sister living in Chilliwack, near my old hometown, and she traveled to New York in November, and then she brought her laptop to class, so she could show her pictures to us.

For Lunar New Year, Veronica gave me some delicious rice cakes that she made with her own hands; they were yakshi, my favourite kind.

Here is Veronica, on the left. On the right is Nahyeon.

Nahyeon is a businessman who has taken a break between jobs to study languages. He is studying both English AND Japanese right now, and he works very hard. He is really good at making sentences, once you encourage him to speak. He shares his opinions, and tries really really hard to put his ideas into words. I really respect his hard work.

He is also gracious. Every day, he thanks me for my teaching.

Sometimes, Betty brings me a cup of coffee in the morning, and occasionally, Nahyeon brings in donuts. Christine (sorry I didn't write about her more: I don't know her as well as the others) brought me a tea one day, Veronica brought some rice cakes, and suddenly we had a big snack party in our class: look at all the good things!
I really feel their appreciation for my teaching, and I have known this class for a long time. They are in Level 1 now, and every month I tell my boss, "Don't change this class. I really love this class." I think they say the same to him, because I have had this class for nine months now! They are my favourite class, and I really love them!

There are other students that are not in the pictures. I also really like John and Misuk (she was in the class from the beginning), Alice, and many other students have come and gone (Jamie, Sebastian, Esther, Rory, Laura) but this 9am class is one of my favourite, and I am sure glad I teach them!