Teaching
The first session of teaching got off to an admittedly ropey start - I had no idea what sort of standard of English the kids (seven in total, age 7-10) were at - my attempts to go over numbers and colours were met with blank stares - and the concept of 'classes' seemed to be at best academic (ho ho). There was regular migration between rooms in spates of bored osmosis. After a bit of re-planning on the hop, the after lunch session got slowly better as I spent the rest of the day going over the alphabet, determining just how much they knew and the range of abilities within the classroom. Dan had it a bit easier with the older kids, but it was always going to be a learning process for myself as well as the students. The weekend provided some needed space to think things through and come up with a proper plan. And also to think about how I would present myself when teaching - a fair amount of armchair psychology comes into play here, and my natural approach to teaching would to basically be as nice and friendly as possible (though maintaining an essential distance between myself and the students). They are young children after all, and I personally always enjoyed learning more (and as a result made more of an effort) when I genuinely liked the person who was teaching. I don't think there's anything wrong with being a bit jokey on occasion - I believe this has the side benefit that it's easier to let them know when they're properly misbehaving as a change in expression or a slightly raised voice has much more of an effect than if you're constantly blowing off steam and shouting. I remember certain teachers being like this, and when they got properly angry, the reprimands were nothing out of the ordinary. Any teaching professionals reading this will probably be rolling their eyes or thumping the desk in incredulity, but it's what worked for me.
Next week things improved gradually. I'd had time to reflect and plan out a rough sort of lesson plan, and more importantly, make some guesses on the abilities of the students. The numbers in the class varied from hour to hour, but there were five kids who turned up every time and a few who turned up sometimes and just arsed about. I think the school is also used almost as a sort of creche so the children have somewhere to go while the rest of the family works in the field, so you can't get too disheartened if some of them don't seem bothered about being there. Over the course of the week I would teach various concepts and nouns, try different approaches and see what held their attention - it helps to have a sort of objective or goal as to what needs to be achieved. I decided it would be best to concentrate on the basics, revisiting things until they stuck as it was obviously impossible to teach everything in a couple of weeks. The problem is that kids (obviously) get bored with doing the same thing all the time, and concentration spans tend to go in phases. The morning and afternoon sessions were two hours long with a short toilet break in the middle (I must stress this was not our choice, and we asked whether it would be better to have shorter lessons - though it's not really up to us to start restructuring things in the school). To their credit the kids concentrated on things for a lot longer than I'm sometimes able to.
There were certain situations, integral to the day of any teacher, that I was not looking forward to. For example, I wasn't sure what I would do if one of my class started seriously misbehaving, or if they were upset about something. There was an incident concerning the second with a young girl named Sugaiya one day seemed very withdrawn and not really concerned about what was going on around her. I initially tried to involve her with the class activity of matching different cases in the alphabet, but I could tell she didn't want any part of it. I decided that involving her any more in the group work would be unkind, as she seemed on the verge of tears and making her stand in front of her classmates umming and erring about some incomprehensible alphabet would push her over the edge. I also didn't think that involving the main teacher would be a great idea as I had a feeling the answer would come as a tap on the head and an order to pay attention (sure enough that's exactly what did happen later). There's a limit to how much you can comfort someone if you can't speak their language, let alone someone so young (and also there's the question of what sort of physical contact is acceptable here - is even putting an arm around someone considered inappropriate ? I suspect it would be less of a deal than in England, but you never know). So the best I could do was let Dan lead the teaching while I sat with her and offered a tissue, probably just another adult talking some nonsense language.
There were good days and bad of course - it was hard sometimes when the children really didn't want to be taught, but I think overall it was a very positive experience, especially towards the end when Dan and I took the classes together. It took a few days to really work out that the trick was to get the students to do most of the work, not to just stand there talking (which really didn't achieve much) - explain a bit, get them to write it down and practice hand writing while the sun streams in through the window. You also have to maintain a sense of humour and give them a bit of cheek back occasionally, if only to let them know that you're a human being as well. Towards the end Dan and I were working on perfecting the art of doing boring essentials when they were in the mood to learn, judging when the kids were flagging and then changing to something fun to bring them back round. Anything that involves drawing seems to be a very good way of getting them to work (which, frustratingly, seems to translate as "repeat what I say" or "write this down" - very hard to get them to do anything different to this if you can't speak their language). It also constantly threw me the way you could teach something one day, with no discernible results, only to have the kids repeat it flawlessly the next day (it constantly made me smile hearing things repeated back in an exaggerated form of my own accent, especially the vowels of certain words - they could have easily passed for East Berkshirians).
I tried to remember what it was like when I was at school at that age (6-10). I seem to remember not really being all that into it and mostly being a cheeky sod to my teachers - well the sandal's on the other foot now alright. The kids did occasionally play up, and shamefully I didn't always find it easy to discipline them ... a case in point : one child got up from his seat, marched up to the window and spat out of it - I was on the verge of reprimanding him for his 'outrageous' behaviour (inverted commas because it's quite common behaviour for adults in the street in certain parts of the world). He then spun round, cracked me the biggest grin I've ever seen, saluted, and marched military-fashion back to the bench. I gave him a very stern look whilst biting my bottom lip to stop the huge laugh that was about to come out. I also found it funny the way kids are basically the same wherever you go - there's little influence from the outside world, yet classrooms are instinctively filled with paper planes, chinese burns, piss-takings on the drawing abilities of one's peers and the old trick of balancing a pencil on the upper lip to look like a moustache. I was disproportionally amused to see one of the girls copying down a picture of the sun and automatically adding a big smily face to it. And the word 'Apple' seems to be very popular (a staple of learning English it seems), the kids seem fond of shouting it as we walked around outside of school. I drew 'Two Red Apples' on the board and there was almost a riot, as was the case when I gave out some coloured pens (which some of the girls then used to colour their nails instead of working). I spent the rest of the day whistling the 70s funk theme tune to the old series of Grange Hill - the one where it shows a comic strip with someone swimming and a sausage on the end of a fork. Winner.
Ah yes, this is a school photograph all right. All the elements are there : bored expressions, one kid looking the wrong way, the joker of the piece pulling a silly face. Right, that's it ! I'm not taking another !
Next week things improved gradually. I'd had time to reflect and plan out a rough sort of lesson plan, and more importantly, make some guesses on the abilities of the students. The numbers in the class varied from hour to hour, but there were five kids who turned up every time and a few who turned up sometimes and just arsed about. I think the school is also used almost as a sort of creche so the children have somewhere to go while the rest of the family works in the field, so you can't get too disheartened if some of them don't seem bothered about being there. Over the course of the week I would teach various concepts and nouns, try different approaches and see what held their attention - it helps to have a sort of objective or goal as to what needs to be achieved. I decided it would be best to concentrate on the basics, revisiting things until they stuck as it was obviously impossible to teach everything in a couple of weeks. The problem is that kids (obviously) get bored with doing the same thing all the time, and concentration spans tend to go in phases. The morning and afternoon sessions were two hours long with a short toilet break in the middle (I must stress this was not our choice, and we asked whether it would be better to have shorter lessons - though it's not really up to us to start restructuring things in the school). To their credit the kids concentrated on things for a lot longer than I'm sometimes able to.
There were certain situations, integral to the day of any teacher, that I was not looking forward to. For example, I wasn't sure what I would do if one of my class started seriously misbehaving, or if they were upset about something. There was an incident concerning the second with a young girl named Sugaiya one day seemed very withdrawn and not really concerned about what was going on around her. I initially tried to involve her with the class activity of matching different cases in the alphabet, but I could tell she didn't want any part of it. I decided that involving her any more in the group work would be unkind, as she seemed on the verge of tears and making her stand in front of her classmates umming and erring about some incomprehensible alphabet would push her over the edge. I also didn't think that involving the main teacher would be a great idea as I had a feeling the answer would come as a tap on the head and an order to pay attention (sure enough that's exactly what did happen later). There's a limit to how much you can comfort someone if you can't speak their language, let alone someone so young (and also there's the question of what sort of physical contact is acceptable here - is even putting an arm around someone considered inappropriate ? I suspect it would be less of a deal than in England, but you never know). So the best I could do was let Dan lead the teaching while I sat with her and offered a tissue, probably just another adult talking some nonsense language.
There were good days and bad of course - it was hard sometimes when the children really didn't want to be taught, but I think overall it was a very positive experience, especially towards the end when Dan and I took the classes together. It took a few days to really work out that the trick was to get the students to do most of the work, not to just stand there talking (which really didn't achieve much) - explain a bit, get them to write it down and practice hand writing while the sun streams in through the window. You also have to maintain a sense of humour and give them a bit of cheek back occasionally, if only to let them know that you're a human being as well. Towards the end Dan and I were working on perfecting the art of doing boring essentials when they were in the mood to learn, judging when the kids were flagging and then changing to something fun to bring them back round. Anything that involves drawing seems to be a very good way of getting them to work (which, frustratingly, seems to translate as "repeat what I say" or "write this down" - very hard to get them to do anything different to this if you can't speak their language). It also constantly threw me the way you could teach something one day, with no discernible results, only to have the kids repeat it flawlessly the next day (it constantly made me smile hearing things repeated back in an exaggerated form of my own accent, especially the vowels of certain words - they could have easily passed for East Berkshirians).
I tried to remember what it was like when I was at school at that age (6-10). I seem to remember not really being all that into it and mostly being a cheeky sod to my teachers - well the sandal's on the other foot now alright. The kids did occasionally play up, and shamefully I didn't always find it easy to discipline them ... a case in point : one child got up from his seat, marched up to the window and spat out of it - I was on the verge of reprimanding him for his 'outrageous' behaviour (inverted commas because it's quite common behaviour for adults in the street in certain parts of the world). He then spun round, cracked me the biggest grin I've ever seen, saluted, and marched military-fashion back to the bench. I gave him a very stern look whilst biting my bottom lip to stop the huge laugh that was about to come out. I also found it funny the way kids are basically the same wherever you go - there's little influence from the outside world, yet classrooms are instinctively filled with paper planes, chinese burns, piss-takings on the drawing abilities of one's peers and the old trick of balancing a pencil on the upper lip to look like a moustache. I was disproportionally amused to see one of the girls copying down a picture of the sun and automatically adding a big smily face to it. And the word 'Apple' seems to be very popular (a staple of learning English it seems), the kids seem fond of shouting it as we walked around outside of school. I drew 'Two Red Apples' on the board and there was almost a riot, as was the case when I gave out some coloured pens (which some of the girls then used to colour their nails instead of working). I spent the rest of the day whistling the 70s funk theme tune to the old series of Grange Hill - the one where it shows a comic strip with someone swimming and a sausage on the end of a fork. Winner.
Ah yes, this is a school photograph all right. All the elements are there : bored expressions, one kid looking the wrong way, the joker of the piece pulling a silly face. Right, that's it ! I'm not taking another !
posted by James at
8:45 PM
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