Goodbye and Good Luck

The semester is over! The students took the MEIPE (proficiency test) on Monday, met with their teachers yesterday and received their results, and came to the Final Ceremony in the Maryland Room in Marie Mount Hall this morning to celebrate their accomplishments and remember the high points of the semester, while looking forward to next semester, when some will return to MEI, some will study at UM, some will transfer to other schools, and some will return to their countries. All will have been changed by their semester studying with us.

As always, some students were delighted with their progress as measured by the MEIPE, while others were very disappointed. I would like to remind everyone that you all learned a lot this semester, whatever your score says.

Lunch at Adele's

Amer, Nina, and Abdulaziz

Nazanin and Sunghye consider what to order

Cindy, Hyosung, and Jennifer

Jennifer and Essa

Today was the last day of our class. It's hard to believe the semester is really over. You have all worked hard and made progress. We are all tired and ready for a break!

Some of us celebrated the end of our shared adventure with a lunch at Adele's, Stamp Student Union's only full-service restaurant. Amer, Ozizo, Essa, Jennifer, Cindy, Nazanin, Hyosung and Sunghye were my luncheon companions. We took a long time to consider the menu. Some of our choices were more successful than others! But on the whole, it was fun. Afterwards, we enjoyed coffee together, courtesy of Karen V. Thanks, Karen!

Testing

This week the students are taking their final achievement tests. These tests are supposed to show whether or not they have achieved the goals we set for them at the beginning of the semester. On Monday, they were tested in reading and handed in their writing portfolios; on Tuesday, they had a listening/speaking test and a discussion (for which I served as an evaluator); and today, they took a four-page grammar achievement test. I think everyone must be sick of tests! Tomorrow, we will have a short class at 11:00 in The Box and then we will go to Adele's (the Stamp Union restaurant) for lunch to celebrate the end of the semester. After lunch we will go to the Coffee Bar. Then goodbye until Monday, when we have the last test: the Maryland English Institute English Proficiency Test (MEIPE)!

An Inconvenient Truth

Tonight I watched An Inconvenient Truth, the movie about global warming by Al Gore. I missed seeing it when it was playing in theaters, and this was my first opportunity to see it. It really is an extraordinary film: very scary, very well-done. As I watched it, I thought how different the past 6 years would have been had Gore won the presidency in 2000. We would not be entangled in an unwinnable war in Iraq, and the planet would undoubtedly be in better shape than it is.

If you have not yet seen this movie, I urge you to see it as soon as possible!