I had fun teaching my last class and my students had fun learning. The class focused on reading and pronouncing dollars and cents amounts. For example, my students have problems pronouncing $123.19 and $123.90. Nineteen and ninety sound similar, especially with an accent. I wrote a list of dollar amounts on the board that highlighted similar sounds, $56.40 and $56.14, $1,745.17 and $1,745.70, etc. I purchased some BIC pens at the local convenience store and gave each student a pen after they read the list.
My students loved the challenge. Some read through the list in about a minute and others made it into a pronunciation aerobics session, sweating their way through a five minute tongue-twisting session.
My students are adult immigrants. Most do not have an education that extends past the ninth grade. Some had problems reading dollar amounts in the thousands, and most had problems reading dollar amounts in the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands.
This difficulty taught me a lesson. Never take the least bit of education for granted.