Every class period, I tell my students that if they have any questions, or just want to practice English, they can come to me anytime for extra help. The total number of students who have taken advantage of my offer of free unlimited tutoring: zero.
Until today!
This morning, I woke up early after sleeping badly. It was barely 6:00 in the morning, and I opened my door to see two of my ninth graders sitting on my porch.
"We came for English help. We want to learn to speak better."
I was still half asleep, hadn't brushed my teeth or eaten breakfast, but they were looking at my expectantly so I let them in.
"Just let me uh... get something," I said, frazzled.
To buy me some time, I had them do an exercise from my grammar book, and once I had somewhat composed myself we tried a reading and speaking exercise.
After we finished, Hélder and António wanted to know how to say a bunch of random phrases, so I wrote them down and we practiced the pronunciation and meaning together. They wanted to know all about my family and where I was from, I took out my world map.
We worked on English for an hour. I don't think they learned anything groundbreaking, but I do think they enjoyed themselves. For them, it was a small victory.
For me, this was a huge victory. Finally, my students are realizing that I'm not just some teacher whose here for the paycheck at the end of the month. I'm not some random foreigner who is going to disappear next week. I am here for two years. I am here for the sole purpose of their English learning. I want them to learn. I want to help!
Finally, someone asked for help!
When I walk in the classroom these days, the students perk up. They say "Good afternoon, Teacher!" when they pass me in the hallways. They actually volunteer to answer questions. They speak! It's these little things that have been happening recently that are giving me the motivation to continue with full force.
What a great feeling!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
One is the Loneliest Number
The excursion to Messica last weekend left me exhausted, so despite the existence of several planned get-togethers around the country this weekend to celebrate St. Patrick's day, I opted to stay home, save for a Friday morning Tete City shopping excursion with Szasha.
It was a quiet weekend.
Saturday dawned cool and bright, with a cloudless sky warning of the hot day to come. I washed all my clothes, re-organized my kitchen, swept and mopped the floor, planned the coming week's lessons, played guitar, made a study plan, cooked a big pot of feijoada to eat from for the next few days, and wrote in my journal.
By this time, it was 10:00 a.m. Not even half the day gone, and my to-do list was empty. Many of my colleagues had left town to spend the weekend with their families in the city, leaving me with few people to talk to.
I read, read, and read some more. In the space of two days, I read three books. I tackled my reading list with previously unmatched fervor, simply because it was the only thing I had left to do. Other than briefly talking with my mother on her birthday and the occasional "Bom dia" or "Como está?" to passers-by, my only source of conversation was with Poppy -- very one-sided.
Around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, I thought to myself "I wonder if this is what solitary confinement is like?"
Isolation is something that we hear a lot about during training. They talk about being the only American for miles. They talk about the overpowering "new-kid-at-school" feeling. They talk about the long evenings, where you're forced to pick up a hobby or risk insanity -- or worse, depression.
I'm very much the type of person that doesn't mind being alone. I spend most of my evenings here alone, and I quite enjoy them. After teaching 50-person classes all day, the quiet sanctuary of my house is welcoming -- and yet this morning, that very same sanctuary felt somehow suffocated. This morning I realized that I hadn't actually spoken to a real, live, person in over 24 hours. This morning, for no particular reason, I felt very isolated indeed.
And that's when the phone rang.
"Hey girl," said Lisa, "I was missing you a lot, so I thought I'd call and see what you're up to."
I smiled, feeling refreshed already.
"You have such perfect timing, you have no idea." I told her.
We didn't talk for long. Ten minutes, maybe, but it was enough.
Friends are widely acknowledged to be the cure for isolation. Talk to someone, says our manual. The friends I've made here are people I've known for less than six months, but already they feel like lifelong friends. There's something about what we've all gone through that binds us together -- our common experience turns new friends into old ones in an exceptionally short period of time.
As the afternoon approaches, I'm so thankful that I have class today. A room full of 50 people to talk to! Jackpot! (Added bonus: They have to listen to me!) But most of all, I'm thankful for Lisa and all the other people here who make the rough days smoother and the good days even better.
It was a quiet weekend.
Saturday dawned cool and bright, with a cloudless sky warning of the hot day to come. I washed all my clothes, re-organized my kitchen, swept and mopped the floor, planned the coming week's lessons, played guitar, made a study plan, cooked a big pot of feijoada to eat from for the next few days, and wrote in my journal.
By this time, it was 10:00 a.m. Not even half the day gone, and my to-do list was empty. Many of my colleagues had left town to spend the weekend with their families in the city, leaving me with few people to talk to.
I read, read, and read some more. In the space of two days, I read three books. I tackled my reading list with previously unmatched fervor, simply because it was the only thing I had left to do. Other than briefly talking with my mother on her birthday and the occasional "Bom dia" or "Como está?" to passers-by, my only source of conversation was with Poppy -- very one-sided.
Around 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, I thought to myself "I wonder if this is what solitary confinement is like?"
Isolation is something that we hear a lot about during training. They talk about being the only American for miles. They talk about the overpowering "new-kid-at-school" feeling. They talk about the long evenings, where you're forced to pick up a hobby or risk insanity -- or worse, depression.
I'm very much the type of person that doesn't mind being alone. I spend most of my evenings here alone, and I quite enjoy them. After teaching 50-person classes all day, the quiet sanctuary of my house is welcoming -- and yet this morning, that very same sanctuary felt somehow suffocated. This morning I realized that I hadn't actually spoken to a real, live, person in over 24 hours. This morning, for no particular reason, I felt very isolated indeed.
And that's when the phone rang.
"Hey girl," said Lisa, "I was missing you a lot, so I thought I'd call and see what you're up to."
I smiled, feeling refreshed already.
"You have such perfect timing, you have no idea." I told her.
We didn't talk for long. Ten minutes, maybe, but it was enough.
Friends are widely acknowledged to be the cure for isolation. Talk to someone, says our manual. The friends I've made here are people I've known for less than six months, but already they feel like lifelong friends. There's something about what we've all gone through that binds us together -- our common experience turns new friends into old ones in an exceptionally short period of time.
As the afternoon approaches, I'm so thankful that I have class today. A room full of 50 people to talk to! Jackpot! (Added bonus: They have to listen to me!) But most of all, I'm thankful for Lisa and all the other people here who make the rough days smoother and the good days even better.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
What Doesn't Kill You
To say I had a bit of a shock when I started teaching here would be an understatement. I have almost 400 students in 8th through 10th grade, and despite having had English instruction since 6th grade, only about a dozen of them can actually string together an original sentence in English. They know greetings, they know "stand up" and "sit down" and half of them know how to form a sentence with "to be". Honestly, I think most American house-pets have a bigger vocabulary.
Most of my students don't really care about learning English, or learning at all. Apart from a select few, these teenagers know that when they grow up, they're going to get married, have kids, and farm the land -- just like their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did. School is something you're supposed to suffer through for a number of years, doing just well enough so that you can move on to the next grade, and eventually you won't be required to come anymore. Most of the classes consist of well-intentioned but under-trained and underpaid teachers dictating notes that the students then copy, repeat, and memorize. That's what passes for "learning" here. Critical thinking and motivation to improve oneself are non-existent. The idea that school can be interesting and enjoyable is (literally) a foreign concept to them.
Clearly, this is quite different than my attitude to learning. Back when I was in school, I was the kid that counted down the days to start school, the kid who went to school with colds, fevers, and laryngitis. I elevated the annual autumn stroll through the aisles of Target -- surrounded by gel pens and glitter pencils and notebooks of every color -- to about the same level as Christmas.
As a teacher, too, my experience so far has been at a summer camp in Germany and a Montessori school in Houston, both of which employed the basic philosophy that anything can be made interesting and fun to learn when presented in a creative way by a determined teacher. I've slowly come to believe that if my students aren't enjoying what I'm teaching them (or at least finding it intellectually stimulating), I'm teaching it wrong. If my students here aren't learning anything and aren't finding the lessons engaging, it's not because they are lazy and unmotivated, it's because they don't consider learning enjoyable -- and, along with English, that's one of the things I'm here to teach them.
This is easy to say, but hard to do. How do you motivate a room of 50-plus kids who stare at you like zombies when you ask a question? How do you get kids who are used to being hit and yelled at by their teachers to stop being afraid to speak? How do you get the girls, who are under the impression they should be seen and not heard, to participate in class? When asked a direct question, students generally stare at the floor silently or mumble something incoherent, so how much valuable class time do you spend trying to coax a simple answer out of a reluctant student? How do you get them to want to learn?
For me, one of the biggest answers has been music. I don't have a single student who doesn't like music -- so anytime I can find a song that ties in to the vocabulary or grammar point that we're studying, I use it. "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong for colors and adjectives, "On Top of Spaghetti" for prepositions of place, "Rock Around the Clock" for telling time, etc. Sometimes they fill in missing words. Sometimes I teach them the words and we sing it. Sometimes they stand up and have to do certain movements when the hear certain words.
But every single time I pull out a song, they visibly perk up. They stop looking like zombies and start looking like students. It's refreshing.
However, sometimes I worry that these kids are so far behind that we can't afford to waste class time doing things like choreographed dances to American pop songs, even if it does vaguely tie in to what we're learning. When trimester exams come up, it's going to be much more important that they know how to write a sentence in the passive than if they know where the meatball that was on top of my spaghetti went.
About a month ago, we were learning about comparatives and superlatives -- "João is shorter than José, but Manuel is the shortest" -- that kind of thing. I taught my classes the chorus to the song "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson:
I told them this song was about personal empowerment and resilience, and explained what each line of the lyrics meant. They loved it, and wanted to listen to it over and over again.
Two weeks later, we had our first test. As I was correcting, I couldn't help but notice that almost everybody remembered what "stronger" and "taller" meant -- and nobody remembered how to form sentences in the passive.
Maybe I'm not wasting my time with these activities.
I've taken a sizable risk, in that I've thrown the provincial curriculum out the window. I may incur the wrath of the provincial Ministry of Education, but there's no point in trying to explain relative clauses to students who can barely put together a sentence in simple present tense.
What I'm gambling on is this: If I can get my students to a very basic level of English -- something that's at least better than "trained household pet" level, some of them might, just might, be able to pass their exams -- and more importantly, improve their lot in life.
I have no idea how it will pan out -- but for now, after facing a zombie class, when I come home exhausted and frustrated, I am greeted and calmed by the words that are now hanging above my workspace:
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Most of my students don't really care about learning English, or learning at all. Apart from a select few, these teenagers know that when they grow up, they're going to get married, have kids, and farm the land -- just like their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents did. School is something you're supposed to suffer through for a number of years, doing just well enough so that you can move on to the next grade, and eventually you won't be required to come anymore. Most of the classes consist of well-intentioned but under-trained and underpaid teachers dictating notes that the students then copy, repeat, and memorize. That's what passes for "learning" here. Critical thinking and motivation to improve oneself are non-existent. The idea that school can be interesting and enjoyable is (literally) a foreign concept to them.
Clearly, this is quite different than my attitude to learning. Back when I was in school, I was the kid that counted down the days to start school, the kid who went to school with colds, fevers, and laryngitis. I elevated the annual autumn stroll through the aisles of Target -- surrounded by gel pens and glitter pencils and notebooks of every color -- to about the same level as Christmas.
As a teacher, too, my experience so far has been at a summer camp in Germany and a Montessori school in Houston, both of which employed the basic philosophy that anything can be made interesting and fun to learn when presented in a creative way by a determined teacher. I've slowly come to believe that if my students aren't enjoying what I'm teaching them (or at least finding it intellectually stimulating), I'm teaching it wrong. If my students here aren't learning anything and aren't finding the lessons engaging, it's not because they are lazy and unmotivated, it's because they don't consider learning enjoyable -- and, along with English, that's one of the things I'm here to teach them.
This is easy to say, but hard to do. How do you motivate a room of 50-plus kids who stare at you like zombies when you ask a question? How do you get kids who are used to being hit and yelled at by their teachers to stop being afraid to speak? How do you get the girls, who are under the impression they should be seen and not heard, to participate in class? When asked a direct question, students generally stare at the floor silently or mumble something incoherent, so how much valuable class time do you spend trying to coax a simple answer out of a reluctant student? How do you get them to want to learn?
For me, one of the biggest answers has been music. I don't have a single student who doesn't like music -- so anytime I can find a song that ties in to the vocabulary or grammar point that we're studying, I use it. "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong for colors and adjectives, "On Top of Spaghetti" for prepositions of place, "Rock Around the Clock" for telling time, etc. Sometimes they fill in missing words. Sometimes I teach them the words and we sing it. Sometimes they stand up and have to do certain movements when the hear certain words.
But every single time I pull out a song, they visibly perk up. They stop looking like zombies and start looking like students. It's refreshing.
However, sometimes I worry that these kids are so far behind that we can't afford to waste class time doing things like choreographed dances to American pop songs, even if it does vaguely tie in to what we're learning. When trimester exams come up, it's going to be much more important that they know how to write a sentence in the passive than if they know where the meatball that was on top of my spaghetti went.
About a month ago, we were learning about comparatives and superlatives -- "João is shorter than José, but Manuel is the shortest" -- that kind of thing. I taught my classes the chorus to the song "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson:
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter, footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over 'cause you're gone
I told them this song was about personal empowerment and resilience, and explained what each line of the lyrics meant. They loved it, and wanted to listen to it over and over again.
Two weeks later, we had our first test. As I was correcting, I couldn't help but notice that almost everybody remembered what "stronger" and "taller" meant -- and nobody remembered how to form sentences in the passive.
Maybe I'm not wasting my time with these activities.
I've taken a sizable risk, in that I've thrown the provincial curriculum out the window. I may incur the wrath of the provincial Ministry of Education, but there's no point in trying to explain relative clauses to students who can barely put together a sentence in simple present tense.
What I'm gambling on is this: If I can get my students to a very basic level of English -- something that's at least better than "trained household pet" level, some of them might, just might, be able to pass their exams -- and more importantly, improve their lot in life.
I have no idea how it will pan out -- but for now, after facing a zombie class, when I come home exhausted and frustrated, I am greeted and calmed by the words that are now hanging above my workspace:
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
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