Diaries of a Teacher II

So I finished my second month of teaching! And my students seem to have benefitted so I'm extra pleased. 

This time round I was given the Basic English level and the lower-intermediate again. I've made more observations this month, and here they are! 

Ups:

* My class sizes were smaller this month; I had 7 students in Basic and 9 students in Level 3. This meant I could spend a lot more time reviewing their work and giving them individual help. 

* A few of my Level 3 students regularly gave me written pieces to look over (homework I would assign). I really enjoyed giving them input on their written work and seeing how they express themselves. One of my favorite assignments is writing a letter to the "Agony Aunt" (ie me!) and asking for advice. 

* The Basic level does not contain much grammar or difficult vocabulary, so my students and I had a lot of time to play educational games such as Spelling Races and Pictionary. They absolutely loved this. Competition in the classroom is always healthy. Plus, I found that it helped me target problem spelling areas; for example, there were a few times that the students thought the /i:/ sound at the end of a word, example "party", was made by the letter "e" and not "y". So we were able to identify this problem area and work on it. 

* Thinking of ways to make concepts visual. For example, "what", "who" and "where" -- I drew stick people next to "who" so that students understood we use it when asking about people. I drew a little map when talking about "where". 

* As I said, I had Level 3 again this month so I was prepared for some tricky questions in the field of the Present Perfect. I was equipped with more examples that led to more elicitation of grammar and vocabulary concepts. I felt this resulted in them understanding more the first time round, rather than half-learning it and then us having to do several revision hours. 

* I enjoyed building relationships with my students, and them trusting me to help them. It really is amazing the positive impact these classes have on these students' lives. And I'm always blown away by the students who have full-time jobs and families and still manage to do the work I set them. 

Downs: 

* Although the Basic textbook contained no difficult grammar or vocabulary, I was still disappointed not to have a teacher's guide. I find that teacher's manuals provide invaluable guidance (especially to new teachers like myself) on how to introduce words and concepts to students. What I tried doing was building the lessons on each other. For example, first we became familiar with greetings, then occupations, then locations, etc and what I would do is a small review session at the beginning of each class. I also gave my students some dictation exercises, to tie in the concepts we had learned (family members, where we live, where we're from and so on). Drilling was key and so was repetition. 

* On the third day of my Basic course, I had a near mutiny. My students started saying how they want to hear Arabic. I stressed that hearing only English in the classroom is immeasurably beneficial but they begged to hear some words. I was trying my best to stick to my position but then one day we were talking about possessive pronouns and just before the class ended, one of my students said "but 'her' and 'she' are exchangeable, right?". I knew I had to speak in Arabic, and just a few words from cleared the confusion. 

(I did some research when I got home. I read how others had my worries - that my students would get too lazy to listen to the Arabic if they knew an Arabic explanation or translation was forthcoming. I was also worried that I'd have to find a balance and it would be more difficult to find if they got used to me speaking Arabic. One piece of advice was to explain the commands I'd use in he classroom in L1 and also give the students phrases they could use; like "how do you say X in English?". This would increase their confidence. Plus, showing them I understood who difficult it is for them would make them relax more.

The next day I boarded up some phrases and explained them in Arabic. For example, "turn the page", "how do you spell?" and "listen and repeat". From that point, I could give commands in English knowing they understood. I also decided to introduce the vocabulary by first allowing them to look at the pictures and say them in Arabic between themselves before discussing in English. This was successful. Lastly, I pointed out some differences in sentence structures between English and Arabic (eg adj before noun). After doing these things, I immediately had a responsive classroom and my students were much happier. And a happy student means he/she will retain the information better.)

* I noticed that my Basic students wrote the Arabic translation of the vocab we were learning (eg, book) next to the photo of the item. I think that this is slightly counterproductive for them, since the photo already tells them what it is. Writing it in Arabic might just lead to them trying to remember the translation rather than the photo. So, one day I brought in a worksheet of body parts (arms, legs, head, etc) and asked my students to write, in Arabic, what the word sounded like. They loved this. 

* In terms of Level 3, it took me about 2 weeks to build a rapport with them. At first, I found some of them to be disruptive, in the sense that they went off topic at every chance they could. They consistently asked questions of why they had to do exercises or why I didn't speak Arabic with them. Getting them to follow instructions was difficult, but I think that was down to them not knowing my teaching style and me not adapting it to them. Also, I found them to be too "eager" - barely would I be through a sentence or question and they'd already have suggestions. In time though, I gained their trust and they were more willing to listen. 

* I introduced phonetics to my Level 3 students at the end of the course, and to be honest, I'm not sure how beneficial it will be since, as they pointed out to me, Google will read the word out to you anyway -_- 

What I will continue doing in my next courses:

 * Timelines, pictures on the board and more exercises to highlight problem areas. For example, since the start of my current course, I've boarded up jumbled up sentences on the board and asked the students to put them in order. Found this to be beneficial because sentence structure is very complicated for Arabic learners. 

* Speaking English naturally - the urge to simplify or shorten my sentence has been great but I am ultimately teaching my students how to correctly express themselves and so have to make sure I am expressing myself correctly. 

What I want to change/adapt:

* More warmers and more educational games. 

This month:

I am teaching Level 3 (again) and Level 2. Looking forward (and so far enjoying) the challenges of Level 2 (lower-intermediate).  

Watch this space for the next reflection! 

Sx

PS Here are some websites I found really helpful when thinking about the whole L1/L2 dilemma:

http://www.esl-lounge.com/talking-points-first-language.php

http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/well-balanced-use-l1-in-class.html

http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/why-your-students-speak-l1-in-class.html

http://myenglishpages.com/blog/l1-efl-classes/

Diaries of a Teacher

Last week, I finished my first month of teaching, marked by the final exam for the level I was entrusted with (lower-intermediate). My heart swelled with pride as I handed them (almost all of them) their certificates. 

I wanted to take some time to reflect on the course and note down my observations, in the hope that I would learn from the experience. 

Ups:

* I was anxious about how much wisdom I'd impart but I saw my students' vocabulary, grammar and conversation skills grow :) 

* I really enjoyed teaching, which is great validation for my decision to go into it! 

* My colleagues were very helpful when I needed guidance on  how to teach tricky grammar points such as the Present Perfect. 

Downs:

* All my students spoke Arabic, more specifically, Jordanian. This meant that when a student asked me a question, like "what does X mean?" their colleague would translate it for them in Arabic. Although this was helpful sometimes, most times I preferred explaining the words in English and let the students see if they can understand it.

* The chairs in the classroom were fixed to each other in rows, which meant I couldn't rearrange the seating for group activities.

* The students could be critical of each other. For example, when reading aloud in class, if one student mispronounced a word other students would sigh or impatiently correct him/her. I think this may be a cultural thing - perhaps students were more direct in their approach.

* A few students' English was lower than the others and I just didn't know how to bring them up to speed without slowing down the class. This was a challenge for me as I wasn't sure how to effectively manage differing levels in the same classroom.

What I will continue doing in my next course(s): 

* Speak English only in the classroom. I can really tell that the students benefitted from this, and within a couple of weeks I was able to slightly increase my speaking speed without "losing" my students.

What I want to change/adapt: 

* I did not have any interactive and fun "warmer" activities at the start of the lessons. Part of it was the fear that my students would not want to take part and part of it was that I wasn't sure how much to deviate from the book. Also, some students prefer not to be too friendly to the opposite sex, again, a cultural thing I need to keep in mind.

* I would like to find an activity that develops the students' language. During lessons I asked students to read aloud but recently (re)discovered that this does nothing for language development.

* I'd like to incorporate the phonetics (IPA) chart into my pronunciation exercises (you can see one here). Although it looks like a foreign language, the chart is very effective when used correctly, as it illustrates the sounds of letters rather than what they look. This can be helpful with tricky letters such as "c", which can have an "s" sound or a "k" sound. 

* I feel that students are used to having the teacher "tell" them what they need to know, but I need to ensure that I am eliciting as much as possible from them and using concept checking questions to check understanding and progress. 

This month:

I have just started teaching a Basic level class, in which the students have no or very little previous knowledge of English. 

I have also been assigned the lower-intermediate level again, so I am excited about having a chance to put into practice the points above. 

Reflections on both coming soon - watch this space!

Sx

frus·tra·tion

Have you ever let your emotions come to the surface while working? A couple nights ago, I am ashamed to say, I experienced frustration at my students and I just feel awful thinking about it *cringe*.

I teach two classes at the moment: a TOEFL preparation class and a lower-intermediate English language class. TOEFL stands for Test of English as a Foreign Language, and it is usually taken by those who want to enroll in an English speaking University, those seeking an English based degree, those who want to work in an English speaking environment (usually in the West) or those who are entering local universities that require a more fluent level of English.

At the centre I work at, students are not allowed to register for the TOEFL preparation class unless they have completed approximately 8 levels of English. This is necessary, since the TOEFL is aimed at fluent speakers with some ability to command the language.

It's my first time teaching TOEFL and I have 3 students. Two of them informed me that they have finished up to level 6 and the other other told me she has reached level 2 (I'm not sure why she was able to register for the class).

I've been teaching them for about 3 weeks and everyday I dread the class. Being a teacher, you get a buzz or a high when you teach a class and the students leave with more knowledge than they came in with. Or when you see the lights above their heads light up. With my TOEFL class, I feel I'm stuck in a vicious cycle and I'm not able to come out of it. I try to explain things to them but usually end up telling them the answer - not the ideal teaching method.

So on Monday we were discussing the difference uses of a noun. This is a tricky topic and one I would not have thought about were it not in the book. Let me give you an example, the word "music" can be made a noun person by changing it to "musician". The word "mile" can be made into a noun thing by changing it to "mileage". Now, I don't remember learning this at school in this manner. What little memory I do have of learning words tells me that I learned them through dictionaries and through what I was doing at school or conversations with people.

So like I said, a particularly tricky grammar point. I point the students to the Appendix at the end of the book, which has some exercises about how to change words to noun persons and noun things using specific suffixes. Then I tell them we'll work out the first example in our book together. The sentence reads:

"In the evening he relaxes in front of the fire and writes long poets."

Poets is circled in the book because it is incorrect. So I ask my students (there were only 2 that day), what is incorrect about this sentence? 

And they just don't know. 

So I ask, what do poets write? 

And they are like.......pottery? 

I'm like, close, but it's a different word. 

And then one of them says to me "well I'm not sure what poet means, is it a person or a thing?" 

I'm like (!) it's a person. So what does a poet write? 

No response. 

So I'm like, a poet writes poems. 

Silence. 

Ok, let's try some other exercises. 

"He had several critics to offer about the new play."

So, is this sentence correct or incorrect? 

Correct.

Well, what's a critic? 

And one of them says to me "I don't know, what is it?" 

And I'm like, where are your dictionaries? 

Blank stares.

I've been asking you for three weeks to bring your dictionaries to class, I've asked about 10 times, tomorrow, if you don't bring your dictionaries, we won't have a class 

Deer caught in headlights...on of them says "I have a dictionary on my phone.." 

Excellent, bring it it out. 

The-most-panicked-taking-out-of-phone-out-of-handbag-ever.  

We eventually work out (ie I tell them) that critics needs to be changed to criticisms. And by this time I am showing my frustration at them, and they are just getting more and more wound up (really, really bad for a student since it causes them to lose confidence and the ability to retain information). I've spent 3 weeks mainly giving vocabulary and grammar lessons, when this was a class meant to be for students who have more than the basic level of English and just want to learn test taking skills. Furthermore, I expect that they would be more serious about this exam considering they are all trying to register for Masters courses.

Anyway. We look at the next sentence:

"The company hired a statistic to prepare marketing studies for the new product".

I ask, correct or incorrect sentence?

Incorrect.

Why?

The company hired...

...why is that incorrect?

Blink blink....to prepare...[is incorrect]..?

*sigh*  

What does hired mean?

I'm not telling you. I feel like I'm telling off my children.

The student with the dictionary finds the definition and we eventually finish the examples I had set (we have more luck with sentences that have act which should be changed to actor and music which should be changed to musical).

The more frustrated I became, the more impatient. And instead of teaching, like I am trained to, I was repeating myself over and over, WILLING them to understand. Ineffective and incorrect. I felt terrible.

After the class one of the students apologised saying "I am so sorry, today I felt I was stupid" and I was like "no, you are not stupid, I am just frustrated that I have been asking for dictionaries in class but no one brings them in."

I felt even more terrible. You shouldn't have a student apologise to you after class. I knew I had failed them. My job was to teach them and all I'd done was cause tension and stress in the class.

I went to seek the advice of another, more experienced, colleague, to ask about how I can teach my students to recognise how to change words correctly. 

And he calmly (which further made me feel guilty) told me that their vocabulary is limited. He said I, as teacher, need to model the examples, and start with simple words, like compose = composer = composition. And that sometimes (for example in the case of jumping from critics to criticisms) I will just have to tell them to memorise the word. He said "you probably just memorised it, you don't remember how you learned it"; and it was true. And when I explained that they weren't bringing their dictionaries, he said, always comment on the positive, so if someone brought a dictionary, comment on that, not the negative.

All of this made sense to me. And made me wonder why could I not have shown that understanding and compassion in class :(

Sx