Slowly Refining My Teaching

So I'm in the third week of my regular morning class, and it has been an enlightening experience.  It is so different to be the main person in charge of planning overarching lesson goals, and picking what kind of lesson we will be having what day.  If a lesson flows smoothly I get to take the credit, but conversely if things just don't work I have no one to blame but myself.

One of the main challenges I have been facing is how to review past grammar concepts or vocabulary, particularly since I was given a class that was three units behind in the textbook.  Add on to that the fact that out of approximately 25 students, only two have been there for the entire session so far.  Most days I have at least five absences, and it's rarely the same people over and over again.  This combines to a difficult situation for reviewing.  No time, and I can't count on the fact that all the students present have even learned this.  But, my attempted solution for the moment is to do the review in the beginning of class when the students are still filtering in (apparently 8 a.m. class is still impossible to get to on time, even when you leave college).  The majority of the students who arrive on time are the same ones who are pretty regular, or at least are more motivated.  And with only ten or so students there in the first half an hour - compared with about twenty in a cramped classroom - I can give them all the personal attention that they may need, even if they were absent the first time I taught a given grammar point or whatever.

So we'll see how that goes.  As I said, it's a whole new world for me, since my position with the Masuda BOE did not involve any curriculum planning, and - as I've mentioned - English in grade school is less about actual knowledge and more about being in school.  Review was unnecessary.  Language retention was pretty much unheard of.

Since I have become a teacher and moved myself to the other side of the learning process, I have found that I am slightly forgetting what it is like to be a student.  This became most apparent this summer when I was working with teenagers and I found myself getting frustrated with their behavior.  But honestly, what did I expect?  I was there myself.  Class was time to space out and occasionally pay attention if I felt the urge strike me.  Teachers can be nice, but they are the "other" and you are going to associate yourself with the other students before you get on the side of any teacher.  This at least is what I remember of being in class in high school.  I think about this often too with my study abroad experience, which is similar to some of the students at the school I work at now.  Yes, I signed up for the class, and yes, I wanted to learn Japanese.  But three hours a day was killer.  And immersion studying was bewildering.  Occasionally speaking English to the other students was a lifeline.  I am often amazed by how much these students are devoted to speaking English in class, since I know I wasn't that good about it, and dropped the Japanese speaking when I could get away with it.  Perhaps a personal flaw; can't say.

But recently the Japan-lust has been creeping back up on me, extremely intensely, and I find myself lingering sadly near Japanese grocery stores and book stores.  I dug out my old JET textbooks that I didn't have the will to study in Masuda, and I have been voraciously consuming them.  I have been happily creeping people out on the subway my muttering in Japanese to myself while I study.

Aside from just being good for my Japanese skills, I do believe that it will help me in teaching.  I have forgotten how long it takes to read a language I don't know, and I have forgotten the personal process of breaking down a long text into something manageable.  I have forgotten what kind of activities help me, at least, acquire a new word or a new grammar point.

Through karate, I've always known that when you are a teacher, you are also learning: you review the knowledge and you must feel comfortable in it in order to share it with someone else.  But I had never thought about the necessity of being a teacher and a student at the same time.  It is something I am exploring for the time being.

Anyway that's all for now.  :)

Teacher-Lady says "Good Morning, Class"

Another eternity without updating, but I have been rather busy. I think I can keep things more up to date if I don't aim for a long meaningful post, so perhaps there will be short missives from the ESL front.

Update #1: I got my CELTA! I am now certified to teach English as a Second Language. CELTA was good, I learned a lot about the structure of a good lesson, methodology that is/isn't effective, and good tricks for the classroom. I can't say I learned much about English itself, which is perhaps one failing of the course as there are many times as a native speaker I have no idea why English works the way it does, but it is an area that I can and will work on. It is frustrating for students when they expect there is a logical answer for why English behaves a given way, and all you can say is, "it...just...does?"

Update #2: I live in Manhattan! It has been two years of wildly drastic living area changes, from Masuda to Hamilton to NYC, and I barely feel like I belong here, but I am certain in time I will get used to it. Four of us are sharing an apartment, keeping the rent manageable, but the location certainly helps. Washington Heights is certainly not Downtown, but it has its personality. I am going to learn Spanish and work my way into the community, if for no other reason than I miss throwing myself upon the hospitality of foreign individuals. Cultures: there are many that are different from mine. But how do I know for sure if I don't try them out? Also, I can only speak for certain points of view from some Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Dominican individuals I have met, but they might be more pushy about getting married and having cute babies than my Japanese students were, and I found the Japanese students to be rather obsessed. I have not told most of my current students my age, but they are all convinced it's high time to have at least one child - but two would be better. And of course, this comes from their own experiences as most of the young women I have talked to from these countries have a child or two, married or not.

The saddest part for me though is when they talk about having left their "babies" in their native country and how they haven't seen them in a while. I can't imagine what that decision must be like, but I have a few questions I would love to ask. Are they having these children because they want to, or do they lack the information and resources to make their own reproductive decisions? I can see how a child you did not plan for could be perceived as a burden to leave behind in search of better opportunities. But that's not the feeling I get from them since they tell me so proudly about their kids, so perhaps it is something else. Are opportunities that limited in their own country that leaving their child behind with family for years can feel like a good decision? One woman hasn't seen her child in five years. She will be six or seven when she sees her mom again. But then again, we tend to view family in the more nuclear sense here, and perhaps we over-emphasize the relationship between parents and children. Maybe the mother-child bond is weak, but the kid has a great relationship with the grandparents or aunts and uncles. Maybe it doesn't really matter who is taking care of the kid as long as someone is. But it is a new idea for me, and I would love to know more someday.

Update #3: I am an English teacher (duh?). I am officially hired at a school and I have real, regular students, and a real, regular schedule. I memorize names, and try to have a structure to my classes, and generally give everyone their money's worth. I'm looking to branch out into private lessons, but I still feel a little unsteady in some areas, such as TOEFL prep and really advanced students. The super advanced students are the one who know more English than I do, I think, and can throw around crazy grammar terms like nobody's business. They scare me still. So I'm reading a grammar reference book to prepare my grammar arsenal, and in the meantime I am making up flyers that I will some day print and distribute. Know anyone who needs to learn some English...?

That's all I got now, stay tuned for more ESL missives? Just don't ask me where godzilla and the tea went....