The Joys of Teaching

So, this week of classes has been interesting to say the least. One of my classes has regular good attendance, but the other one only has about half of the students show up on any given day. It´s a little ridiculous, and it´s making my life a little harder in terms of teaching new material. However, I have figured out a plan, and now our "warmer" for the day is an exercise that goes over ALL of the material that we worked on the day before, and makes the students talk and work in groups. It seems to be working out fine for now.

I also gave a test last week, which went actually better than I had planned. I mean, there were certainly still some students that didn´t do very well, but in general they at least got the main concepts. Grammar will come with time, so they just need to keep practicing. Some of them just get so nervous when speaking English that they don´t talk very often, making it harder for them to learn. This is the one instance when I am actually glad that I don´t know much Spanish. The students will babble off in Spanish asking me questions, and I just give them the same blank stare of not understanding that they give me when I talk too fast in class. It forces them to use the English that they know to communicate with me. Granted, it´s also fun to sometimes have them help teach me Spanish. They all get a kick out of the fact that I don´t know very much, and I especially enjoy when I´m teaching vocabulary and the students translate the words into Spanish and look at me to see if it´s right... I usually just look at them and say, "Sure, why not?" But then we always have someone double check with a dictionary to make sure if we really don´t know the word in Spanish. Teaching the vocab is helping inprove my Spanish and their English, so it´s a win-win situation all around.

Behavior-wise, I have found that enstilling the fear of God into them usually works well. Whenever the "Native-Speaker" (me) gets really angry and starts raising her voice in a language that the students don´t understand, they all seem to understand somehow. I never yell or anything like that, but a stern English talk has been very effective. The students are all finally getting to know who I am and know how to behave in the classroom. Of course I´m not going to be able to please everyone all the time, and some students don´t always like all the activities that we are doing, but that´s ok. As long as they´re practicing their English, I have come to the conclusion that there´s always a different activity that they will like the next day. Teaching has definitely been an adjustment, but it has also been really rewarding. Learning a new language is always difficult, but when they ask me questions and get the right answers it makes everything worth it. I´m also able to show my sense of humor in the classroom as well, even if sometimes it means making a fool of myself. The students love when Teacher is funny and does crazy things in the classroom.

I will try and take some pictures of my school and classes soon and get them up here as well. The school is actually really nice, although under construction, and my students are lots of fun!

Chao!