Steffi

After an interesting and enjoyable career in human resources (primarily staffing and training), in 2002 I began teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) classes as a volunteer at Stanford’s Bechtel International Center.  My classes are filled with enthusiastic, bright, interesting, polite people from many parts of the world.  I always go home excited about my class.  Sometimes I coach individuals on pronunciation, conversation, resume writing and job search skills. 
 
When I started teaching, I had no idea that some of my students would welcome us to their countries and tremendously enhance our travels.  We have visited them in Japan, Korea, Norway, Iran, and France.  We have visited many countries in the northern hemisphere.  We travel because we learn a lot, meet interesting people and make new friends. 

I hunger for new things to learn and experience.  Currently, my hobbies are on gardening, doing crafts with my grandchildren, yoga, and reading books.  My other interests include dancing, music, hiking, biking, Pilates, rafting, visiting museums, and playing mahjongg.  I also try to maintain my knowledge of Spanish and French.  Grand-parenting with Tom is great fun and heartwarming.  Tom and I have done a lot of work on the house together:  building decks and paths, replacing solar panels, and gardening.
 
I have been involved in volunteer work at Encinal Elementary School in the art classes, Phillips Brooks School in the library, the Cantor Art Museum, and Little House Senior Center in teaching seniors basic computer skills.
 
I intend for you to find my English class website useful.  I would appreciate your emailing me your suggestions at [email protected]. 
 
I hope to meet you in class!
We are all here to learn together.
Let’s help each other enjoy the learning process.
Tom:

I currently teach the class (virtual on Zoom)
"Issues in American Culture in America"
at Stanford’s Bechtel International Center as a volunteer. My wife, Steffi, often participates in teaching this class with me. My profession is pediatric dentistry. I am now retired. I have taught graduate students in my specialty at the University of California School of Dentistry, San Francisco. I have always enjoyed teaching. The class I teach at Stanford is very rewarding and stimulating.

Our students are a mix of foreign visiting professors, scholars, scientists, engineers, health professionals, lawyers, post-docs, their spouses, and significant others. Students come from all over the world such as Central and South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia and Africa. We only speak English in the class. I use projections from my laptop depicting various cartoons, written material, and film clips to present students with American humor, culture, idioms, words and phrases. I present all types of humor including weekly political cartoons. I strongly encourage class participation so that students may have the opportunity to speak English and share their cultural perspectives. In this way, participants share and learn from each other about their countries. It's wonderful to see how much we all have in common.

Aside from teaching, I enjoy spending time with my wife, Steffi, and our 5 grandchildren. I also enjoy gardening, reading, attending art exhibitions, cooking international food, and international travel.

Photography, especially of our travels, is very rewarding for me. I try to frame scenes to make them interesting and artistic. With digital, it's so easy to snap away, but THEN comes the hard part: editing! Deciding which pictures to discard can be very difficult and frustrating!