ing I’ve just finished my second full week of teaching and it’s certainly been… a learning experience. There have definitely been good days where I walk out the gate thinking, “They learned. I did something.” Then there are those days where I walk home pouting. It’s not even the kids. The kids are great, for the most part anyways. At least 80% of all my classes are enthusiastic about learning. They try, they participate, they are excited to speak and even more excited when they understand. My biggest challenge is trying to get my teachers to change their views on teaching the curriculum. They want different methods and different outcomes but, like they say, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. (Well, none of them are old, but you know…) They’ve just been teaching the same things, the same ways for years and I need to break this pattern. The books are terrible and provide no actual production. Teachers only focus on one student at a time by drilling them with endless questions and translations. Little English is spoken inside class and if a student doesn’t understand them, they get viciously reprimanded. (Don’t worry, by “viciously” I mean chewed out. There’s no physical contact thank Allah. Just the typical self esteem shattering yelling.) Questions only have one standard answer. Students who don’t have strong motivations in class are ignored and cast to the side. Texts are memorized and regurgitated. Material is presented and then never revisited or used. Sometimes I just loathe the co-teaching. This morning I met with one teacher and I told her “Be patient. Let them try and make mistakes. We will only speak English to them. Don’t translate. Eventually they will learn.” An hour later, she was yelling at them in Azerbaijani… for ten minutes. I almost wanted to walk out. The thing is, like the students’ English skills, the teachers’ skills will come, slowly but (this is where I have to put in my faith) surely. Everything in this country is a slow process, but I just have to remain optimistic that if I work hard and remain determinedly persistent, change will come.
I also started my Conversation Clubs this week. They were large but it wasn’t that bad and I think students understood for the most part. Let me tell you though, even I need to learn how to be more patient. It’s hard for them to understand when the whole thing is in English and they are used to trying to get everything perfect instead of failing a little bit. I talked about Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year and gave them little red envelopes with sweetheart candies in them and we talked about ice cream, a topic that all kids in every country like. Then at the end two really great things happened. One girl gave me a pair of earrings and a plastic flower barrette. Then as I was walking out the gate, all the boys jokingly held open the gate for me and ushered me out like a queen. (We just read about Queen Elizabeth.) It was great and exactly the kind of interaction that I have been aching for with these kids. I’m not their peer, but I’m not their teacher either. This country just isn’t quick to move. An interesting linguistic attribute is they always say, “maybe.” When I lesson plan I tell them, We will go over new words. They say, Yes maybe. I say, I will be here for two years. They say, Yes maybe. I say, I am having conversation clubs this week. They say, yes maybe. Nothing is for certain. Nothing is a commitment. In the US, everything is yes or no. There is always a decision made. No walking around an answer. It is or it isn’t. There is always a result. Forget about my surprise with those dirty potatoes, this is the real culture shock. This is my real adjustment. I just know now that I’m going to have to push, and I’m going to have to push hard.
PS. Happy Aniversary Nate Dogg!
0 comments:
Post a Comment