starting teaching

Yesterday I taught my first class. The day before my hard drive died (most of what was on there was recovered, and I'd already printed out my handouts).

There were about 30 in the class, many from Kenya, but also students from Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria, Benin, USA, Hungary and UK! Only 8 came here to study translation: the rest were in biblical studies, mission and Christian ducation, and I think some were puzzled why they were sitting in a class on the Sociology of Language. So we talked, and discovered that only the American had spoken only one language on Monday: the subject is largely concerned with what language people use and in what situation (it does get more involved than that). And that has a lot to say about what language people should best read the Bible in, what language(s) church should be in and so on. People everywhere have a tendency just to copy what they've seen others do, but my goal is to help people actually decide which the best languages to use are: on the basis of what's happening around them rather tradition.

All the students had to fill in a questionnaire, including a question on what they hope to do afterwards. I'll include a couple of answers from non translation students...

"Reaching untrained pastors, whose education level may not grant them admission to Bible Schools, Christian education minsitries and may be lecturing in theological schools/ colleges"

"I hope... to be a good exegete of the Bible, revise translations. I am planning to teach in Bible Collleges and write devotionals and commentaries."