He lā maikaʻi kēia lā.

ʻAnoʻai,

This poor blog has been neglected for too long. I will attempt to revive my own interest in posting, documenting, and sharing my thoughts and experiences. I have asked my Hawaiian language students to keep a journal and thought I should at least do the same!

Today was meeting two of the second 4-week session. Our first meeting, a couple of weeks ago, was mainly a review of the concepts we learned last session. The review was intense. I did however begin teaching a new pepeke; the pepeke ʻaike he. I also provided enough vocabulary for two weeks since we would not be meeting the holiday weekend.

I assigned a work sheet for pepeke ʻaike ʻo and pepeke ʻaike he. The students had to translate from English to Hawaiian and Hawaiian to English. I also asked them to create their own sentences. Only one student emailed me during the two weeks, sharing how difficult it was to complete the haʻawina. Thank goodness she emailed me because as I found out in class today that while many folks were trying, the concepts were still "fuzzy."

It was great to hear all the questions while going over the haʻawina in class. We worked on the entire sheet. I had a good feeling that students were relieved and happy that it started to make sense.

It felt good for me too. As with most things I do, I set the bar high. I also attempt to teach too much to quickly. I am getting better though! In the back of my mind I have this urgency to get the haumāna to a point where they can start speaking more, and sometimes I advance to the next concept too soon. Today I felt that most everyone was okay with the pace being slower and that they are in it for the long term. Mahalo ke Akua!

Our class size from the first session has reduced due to varying circumstances of the students. Some haumāna were kind enough to let me know their situation and others just never show up. Hello!?

I am truly grateful however to the haumāna who have returned, even though some are going through difficult times financially. Some others are still attending papa while trying to manage other important parts of their lives...but they come.

He lā maikaʻi kēia lā.

ʻO ia ihola,
Liko