On progress

What holds this year over last is that when the students walk up and say, "Teacher, what my name is?" I can have them write it in Thai and generally transcribe a couple of syllables with reasonable accuracy, especially if there's verbal distinction (in Thai, the first consonant and vowel are pronounced while the rest are left to implication, i.e. the nicknames Milk, Mild, Mile, Mind, Mai, Mie all sound like "Mie").  The only problem is that it's really funny to write bad words for teacher to sound out.
Sigh.
I know I had a rough time between 12 and 18, but did I do that much to spread it around?