Upon reading an inquiry as to whether English use has increased around me, the faces of four young Georgians popped into my head: Giorgi, Luka, Aleko and Vaso (disclosure – the names of all four students have been changed). When I started teaching at the beginning of February, these four had two things in common – they used almost no English and were the students who had been somehow labeled as “lazy” by their co-teachers.
Everyone of my classes had a Giorgi, Luka, Aleko, and Vaso. They were the ones I loved working with most of all, and every little success was like a huge sense of achievement.
