A small sign, a big encouragement
Today, we went to DMV and picked up our new license plates for the car. While speaking to the friendly man behind the counter (I know, friendly DMV employee…it happens, I guess) he chuckled when we told him what we were doing in Montana next month. “You’re leaving Oregon, and teaching teachers to teach English, in Montana,” he said. Smiling, he turned around and reached inside a cardboard box on the back wall of the office. He pulled out something thin and rectangular inside a plastic see-through bag. “We’ve been giving these away for about a month now, and I’ve been waiting for them to mean something to somebody.” Holding it up, he showed us our new Oregon plates. Three numbers and three letters with a pine tree in the middle. This plate, and all the other plates in the DMV man’s box were designated with the same three letters: “ESL”. With eyes wide, a mixed look of shock and excitement lit our faces while the man just smiled, obviously understanding the significance of those three simple letters. English as a Second Language, the exact subject we were about to go teach in Montana. How incredibly awesome is that? Needless to say, we were pleasantly encouraged by this small sign and we now hang those plates proudly on the front and back of our car.
We leave Saturday night for Montana, as ready as we can be for another summer teaching ESL to speakers of other languages.
