As of two days ago, I have four hours of teaching experience. That is to say, I had my first class in Pachuca. I have to say, this whole situation has been highly unnerving. Despite constant reassurances from Magda & Elka that everything will work out, I find it extremely difficult not to know a) who my students will be, b) their approximate level, what teaching materials and guidelines I will have, or d) when/how often my classes will be. To make matters more challenging, things change by the minute. At first I was going to teach two levels of adults and something else. The something else was the first to become clear: a conversation class — four hours long! — with adults. But the other two classes went south due to lack of enrollment. Then I thought I should try for a spot at the university because it would be good experience and because Magda didn’t have enough students for me anyway. On and on like this. I left town for four days during the first week I was to teach. I was assured that on my return, things would be in order. They weren’t — again, due to enrollment problems. Then Magda said that there were two classes I could teach but they had only five students, which I wasn’t sure was within SIT’s guidelines. That, and the classes are beginning children, not the intermediate adults I’ve been reading about.
So right now it’s 6:00 pm and I’m at the school looking over, for the first time, the books I’ll need to use for the two classes I start in less than 24 hours. They’re boring. I’ve been trying to fix the themes in my mind and think of ways I can enhance and enrich the experience, but I don’t have enough experience to come up with new, creative ways of teaching “should” and “shouldn’t” in the context of sports and health. I looked at a pre-test the students will get, and they have to know a strange set of vocabulary related to athletics and the body and sunburn and shoulderpads and deep breathing for mind and body. Jeez. I just learned an hour ago that these children are still illiterate so anything written is pretty much out of the question. They’re also younger than I realized: around ten or eleven. With no time, and being far from home where I might have realia to use and other supplies, I’m at a loss. Immediately following that class tomorrow is one with high school kids: again, a demographic I’m not comfortable with. I don’t mind trying, since who knows: maybe I’ll love it. But kids in groups make me as nervous as do dogpacks in the streets at night.
At least I have Internet now. It’s amazing how much I rely on it, and a little scary. But when I start looking at these workbooks, which are very dry, it’s my first thought: go online and find something more interesting. But searching takes time. So for tomorrow, all I’ll really be able to do is try to absorb the material in the book so I don’t have to be referring to it all the time, and teach the way they say. Hopefully my own nature and humor will find a way through the cracks of the artificiality of the text. If I were they, I’d be bored to death. I’ll have to bounce, at the very least, to try to hold their attention. And I have to act as though I believe in what the books says.
Today I started a six-week intensive Spanish course at one of the university campuses and the teacher went right to the workbook and taught directly from it. I noticed that she did it with enthusiasm, as though she were convinced that this were the One True Way to teach us. I’m not good at one true way, but yet I needed that attitude from her or I would have lost faith in the value of the class. I also noticed that she talked way too fast. She asked us to stop her if we had questions, but no one did, even the one guy who doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. I need to remember that: asking people to stop me in the moment isn’t sufficient, because people just don’t want to interrupt or monopolize or look stupid. When I taught on Saturday, I said the same thing: please interrupt. But nobody did. So I watched faces very carefully for signs of comprehension, and added clarification when I thought it was necessary. But I’d like to think of other tricks for checking comprehension in the moment (as opposed to after the fact, by way of a test or something).
So my first teaching experience was… weird. I have taught before, but it was a subject I knew. I’d worked on a lesson plan at SIT and I adapted it for this. I kept changing it every few seconds, swapping order and stuff. Here’s how it ended up:
Goals: Introduce myself to the students; get to know the students; begin to evaluate their productive and receptive competencies; begin to build community in the classroom.
Materials: Computer and PowerPoint slides. Index cards and pens. Blackboard and chalk. Paper and pencils. Handout of interview questions and writing prompts.
Students Will Be Able To:
- Tell a story about an aspect of his/her life that interests him.
- Simple present and/or past tense, basic subject, verb, object syntax, and high-frequency vocabulary.
| Time | Teacher | Students | Notes |
| Write agenda | GreetingsMy Story
Your Stories Guessing game Break Topic: Why do we do what we do? |
||
| 2:00 | Hand out cards (one for me too) | Write name | |
| 3:00 | Introduce self & goals: listening/speaking but also reading & writing. Some group, some solo. Variety.
BG in media & art: part of curriculum to document. Blog for your writing, etc. Internet access, cameras? Okay to take photos/videos? |
Questions? Replies | |
| 3:00 | Flip card & write something no one in class knows about you. | Collect cards | |
| 10:00 | Hand out competency cards | Arrange | Note who sez what |
| 10:00 | Conversation: Get Ss in pairs | An exciting thing you’ve done. | |
| 5:00 | Class expectations. Safe. | Ideas for group norms. | |
| 15:00 | Slideshow | What is happening. | Ask framing questions as necessary. |
| 5:00 | Does anything surprise you? | Reply. | Check on comprehension as you go along. |
| 10:00 | New topic: an important moment Write framing questions: Where did your story take place? Who was there? What led up do it? What happened? How did you feel about it? | ||
| 2:00 | Model it. | ||
| 10:00 | Tell them they have 10 minutes to write their story. Don’t worry about perfect English. I want the GIST of the story. | ||
| 15:00 | Put away story and pair up. | Take 5:00 turns. Other listens and takes notes. Help each other w/ vocab. Listener names one thing s/he finds memorable. | |
| 5:00 | Make any changes based on feedback from your classmates | ||
| 20:00 | Whole group: Tell each other’s story. Ask if I can tape this very first assignment so we can look at it later. Use notes if you need to. | Writer adds details if necessary. | Allow time between stories for some kind of group response: discussion |
| 5:00 | Guessing game with name cards | Ask each a follow-up question | |
| 10:00 | Final game: Mad Libs (intro concept & routine) | ||
| 115:00 |
BREAK
Forrest Gump: give context. Has anyone ever done something they didn’t quite know why?
Ask question: when things are hard for you, what do you do?
- Accent
- He’s describing things that already happened
Give examples from your life:
- Does everything have to have a reason?
- Why did people start to follow him Why did they admire him?
- Aspects of US culture: “shit happens” and smiley face
- What does that say about how fads are started
- What does the movie imply about living simply, in the moment. What do you think about that.
- Views of US.
That’s a little about America. Now about Pacchua.: Introduce me to Pachuca.
- What are expressions from this part of Mexico or famous products
- Who are the local heroes
- Local activities?
Homework
- Bring from home one object that has significance for you: a photo, a rock, a book, a piece of clothing… anything. Be prepared to talk about it.
- Make and bring in a list of your strongest interests and hobbies
That’s it. You wouldn’t believe how little of it I did. Being inexperienced, I had my computer by my side and kept looking at my Word doc to see what was next, once we’d finished a bit. I am very very bad at sticking with plans. But I need plans. I don’t know if I didn’t stick with the plan because I’m inexperienced and kept wandering off track, or if it was for a better reason: maybe that I followed the flow of the classroom better. I have the luxury of doing that in this class.
So the way things actually came down was that the night before, I’d read somewhere online that Forrest Gump is a good movie to use for ESL/EFL classes. So I found a clip, glanced at it and thought it had potential. It was the part where he just started running without knowing why, and didn’t stop for three years until he was finished. As is reflected on the lesson plan, I thought it might be a good jumping off point for talking about why we make certain decisions.
As I recall, here’s how it unfolded. Magdalena introduced me. I asked the students to write their names on cards and put them on the floor where I could see them. I forgot to introduce myself, someone pointed out, so I made a card also. I asked each of them why they were studying English. Every one wanted it for work or opportunity, but no one wanted it for the US. They want to stay in Mexico. That’s interesting to me, and positive. Interesting because of what I’ve read about English as an international language, and here it is in action. And positive because I’m glad they get to stay in their native country if they want, and still survive.
Everything began to unravel around that time. But the students were very respectful and attentive, until close to the end when they started squirming and I dismissed them. I handed out the cards I’d made in the US and had them order from easy to hard the four skills in English. Interestingly but not surprisingly, all but one felt that either listening or speaking was the hardest. As I’ve been studying Spanish and trying to communicate in it these last two or three weeks, I’ve found the same thing. I find it extremely valuable to have to learn and survive in another language, since it gives me teaching ideas and enhances my understanding of stumbling blocks.
I asked the students to pair up and tell a story. I can’t remember about what. Something important that they did or something. Then their partner told the others’ story. They did very well.
Oh, before that I also explained to them that I’d built a blog for us and asked if they had Internet. They all do. And I’d told them about my interest in documentary and radio and art.
Then I went through my slide show with them. It’s rather anticlimactic when seven people have to squish in tight to watch a tiny screen. They didn’t seem comfortable doing it. And one boy has bad eyesight and no glasses.
The slide show, I felt, was kind of a bomb. I was bored by it. It didn’t cohere, but seemed like random snapshots of my life. It would have been better if I’d had a more specific them, and/or had it be shorter. But there was a thread in there: there were several pics of me doing stuff that scared me. Trapeze. River rafting. So I tied that into the topic I’d foreshadowed with the upcoming viewing for Forrest Gump.
There was one part of my slideshow that I think may have been effective, aside from its giving them an idea of who I am (too big an idea, though). It’s when I showed the picture of Dad and talked about his death. I thought I perceived a shift, a frozen moment, in the class. I’d talked about having to say goodbye to my father for the last time. I, too, lost my momentum for a moment. I have no idea if what I’m about to say is true, but it seemed that they were affected by that. I wonder if they appreciated my candor. I wonder that because when they talked about themselves a few minutes later, they talked about things that really mattered, not glossy things.
The assignment was different than what I’d planned. I wrote a few framing questions up on the board about a decision they made that had changed their life. I talked about how we have all these forks in life, and the one we take completely alters our course forever. They wrote a paragraph, and then I asked them each to tell me the story without looking at the paper at possible. Again, they all did well, I thought. That is, I understood what they were trying to say. I videotaped them also.
After break I went to play Forrest Gump but the sound was inaudible so I had to wing it. I played Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega. I’d written out the lyrics earlier to use in some future class. I explained (off the cuff) that it was mostly present continuous (I didn’t call it that; I said “it’s happening right at that moment”) and said it was easy and clear and to note any words they didn’t recognize. I didn’t give them any context. They didn’t understand the song at all. So I bullshat. I got them to say a few things — someone’s sitting down and watching the world — and then said, “YES, that’s it. That’s what the song is about. Even without knowing the words or the context, you got the overall meaning of the song.” So I pretended I meant to leave them confused, and praised them for their skill at getting gist. I should be a politician. Then I explained the song (which I’d never listened to so I had to read fast) and had them listen a second time, during which they understood much more.
I forget what else I cobbled together. I stretched things as much as I could. It was a real challenge to be completely baffled and addled but to have to try to keep the orchestra playing, hopefully without missing a beat. I don’t remember much else. Unless I’m with Milt or some other guy I like a lot, four hours is a long time.
Finally, I spent too much time in the two days after class editing the videos and trying to get the blog to work and formatted and getting the videos uploaded and transcribed and also transcribing each student’s written story and adding nice comments to each post. It’s an untenable amount of work, though I’m hoping that I can curb it now that I have a baseline documented. It looks as though one student has looked through the site so far. (I gathered their emails and notified them to look if they want.) I have the additional concern that some might feel their privacy is being invaded by having their videos on YouTube (which is the only way I could upload them.) I told them via email and on the blog itself that if they don’t want something they’ve written or said to be on the blog, just let me know. I’ll ask one more time next week. These may be an exercise in futility as a classroom tool, but it’s good for my master’s.
One last thing: I asked to collect their written paragraphs at the end of class. They all seem startled. I hadn’t told them (because I hadn’t thought about it) that I’d be doing that, so I their notes were on the page and doodles and stuff. So next time I have to warn people when I’m collecting something.