"New Year"

So February marks the beginning of a new year for me, okay so not really a new year in any normal sense, but it is a milestone nonetheless. I have now reached the halfway point of my grant period and have also started all new second level classes. While I really wasn’t sad to say goodbye to my first group of fourth level students in December, it was strange and a little sad to have my last classes with my second level students. Instead of changing one class, this time I’ve changed four classes. So even though all of the new classes I’ve had so far have started off better than the first half of the year, it’s still weird!

.

One thing that’s encouraging is how my new classes have turned out so far. I started a new fourth level class in December and the four new seconds last week, and they’ve all been so much better than those that began in September. I don’t know if it’s just that the groups have been tamer of if I’ve actually improved as a teacher. One new second level student on Friday told me that I was a good teacher and that my class was fun (he then told me he was going to go to Oxford on a scholarship and become a world famous scientist). What a big difference from the third level students! It is nice to have a fresh start, too, because after some of my failed lessons my older groups have developed a bad attitude towards my class which is difficult to change. I honestly don’t know why I thought I could be a teacher without any training or relevant experience (being a camp counselor or a college math tutor didn’t prepare me at all). Though I’ve never had problems with public speaking, it’s a challenge speaking to people who don’t understand you. Instead of trying harder to understand, many end up tuning out or acting up, often times talking back in a language you can’t always understand. It’s also challenging to teach curriculum that’s way outside of what you studied, lacking any formal training, and when you haven’t been inside of a middle school classroom for close to a decade. But little by little, poc a poc, I am improving.

.

I came into this assuming I could rely on my creativity and enthusiasm, but often times the students’ behavior makes things impossible. My background at Maplewood where everybody was sheltered and well behaved, at Christian camps, in the IB program in high school, and the honors program in college definitely have not prepared me for teaching students who do not care about school or want to learn English. I was always the kid who wanted to learn and tried hard in all of my classes, but that has been so rare in my classes that when I get a student like that I am always blown away. When one of my students asked me if he could use a dictionary to fill out his worksheet it made my day. I’m lucky that my private students are all attentive and interested. I have had a couple of students, though, that are too much like me and too worried about grades and technicalities, when in all honestly my class isn’t that important and I am pretty lenient on grades (though I do make an effort to make grades objective, but naturally when students behave and don’t push my buttons, I am more generous).

.

In the beginning of the year I was optimistic about everything, but once I got inside the classroom and experienced the chaos these kids are capable of producing, I got scared. For example, after one bad experience playing charades with my fourth level students (they took over the class and had a paper war), I was afraid of trying it in my other classes. I didn’t want to play any more games in my classes because I knew the kids wouldn’t appreciate it (if they could even listen long enough for me to explain the directions). I was also too intimidated to try any sort of real lesson or work on the blackboard because I didn’t think they would listen to me. I relied too much on worksheets because at least if there was one in front of them we could all pretend they were working. Sometimes, though, I was secretly afraid of what would happen if they actually quieted down and listened, because then they would realize that I had no idea what I was doing. I know this sounds horrible and it probably is.

.

However, a lot of this has changed, though it is the hardest in my third level classes because they don’t listen (even if I am right in front of them repeating their name and asking them a question). The students enjoy showing what they know through activities like brainstorms on the board. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does! I also like the freedom I have in my second level classes to teach about American culture instead of vocabulary and grammar. One student actually got excited the day I said we were going to learn about history. Imagine that! I also got up the guts to play some games again, and I think some of them might have learned a few new words. Now in addition to knowing headache, they can say stitches and bandaids (or plaster, for the UK), too. So even though it may be a little more work for me, they learn more and it makes things more interesting. In reality, my class has so much potential to be fun or at least a break from the normal worksheets, homework, and lectures. While I don’t have as much room to be inventive as the other Fulbrighters because of my school’s curriculum, there is still a lot of things I haven’t explored yet, and in a way I’m glad I still have half a year to go. Unfortunately when I find something that works I can’t repeat it right away because they will get bored of it. I just realized, though, that we’ve been doing the same thing for awhile (worksheets), and that’s probably why they hate my class! One student even asked me if we could do something different in class. Of course, now we are beginning a unit on Forrest Gump, which will be easy for me but hopefully not too boring for them.

.

In other news, one of my roommates brought us a jamonera and the first of our four ham legs has been cut into. Delicious, fatty, salty ham. After a week, it is almost finished (though there were a lot of people over this weekend to help eat it).