Things are quiet at school at the moment. Students are in exams and I'm chilling, 'studying Japanese' (actually I'm read a book. Motivation I have not, today).
The only 'work' I've done over the last few days has been answering questions from teachers regarding the accuracy of student answers. Most of these questions have been pretty genuine, with only the occasional obvious one slipping through. This has led to much internet research in order to back up my assertions. The problem with teaching English here is a) they learn American English, which I obviously don't, so sometimes I'm not sure if the grammar is wrong, or just American, and b) often I get questions like 'when using present perfect, why do we need to use 'have + present perfect'? Which is all Greek to me. I speak the language, but I never learnt the names of the different bits. I think I'm doing better than average because I know there are more than three tenses (past, present and future are the only ones I can explain, but I know there ARE more).
So these questions have necessitated consulting google. Thank God for google. Don't know what I would do without it. In the last few days it has helped me out on the have + present perfect thing, explained when you use 'if I was' vs. 'if I were' and clarified 'do you have a pen?' vs 'have you a pen?'
Other than that I'm having a bit of a down period at the moment. I don't think it's culture shock-related, I think it's just a regular old bad patch at work, but I could be wrong. Currently I'm really struggling to get used to the teaching styles of a couple of teachers who I wasn't working with last year. Teacher A translates every word I say, while I want to shake her and scream 'these kids have had at least four years of English! Have a little faith!' On the other hand, teacher B tells me not to speak slowly for the students, to speak at 'natural speed' ('These kids have had only four years of English!'). I restrained myself from telling her that even she would be screwed if I spoke at regular NZ speed (I struggled to understand Kate when I was home. Clearly even I struggle with NZ speed now!). However I made a concious effort to speak a little faster with her and sure enough, a couple of days later she told me she didn't understand what I said because it was too fast.
Both of these extremes I find a little insulting. I've spent almost two years over here now and the most important thing about teaching English - or just any communication in English here - is to judge how much your listener is understanding, so you can increase or decrease the difficulty as necessary. So to have teachers translating everything I say (when I have taught six year olds without any native speaker support), or telling me to speak 'native speed' (when I can see the students eyes glazing when I speak too fast) is frustrating. They mean well, but they don't know what they are talking about. Teacher B, being the best at English here, once asked me if I speak differently at school to how I would with native speakers. It took me a moment to answer, not because I had to think about the question, but because I was a little stunned at being asked. Of course we do. The teachers, never mind the students, wouldn't stand a chance if we spoke like we do at home.
To continue my whine, teacher B also was super annoying before class, with the best of intentions. I had given out the lesson plan the week before and printed the 320 student copies the day before. Then the morning of class, she was reading through the lesson plan and had lots of questions and suggestions for the lesson. Feedback... great. Feedback when it's too late to easily change the plan... super super annoying. Next time I will be careful to run the plan past her BEFORE I print off all the handouts etc. Most of her ideas are good and I apply them to the other classes too. But... this sounds terrible, but I feel like it's a power struggle in her class. She is trying to lead the class. Fair enough, because it's officially her class and she is officially the teacher. But I'm also trying to lead the class, because it's my lesson plan, I'm used to leading the classes I plan and, dammit, I'm the one that understands the activities I planned! I had a super super frustrating class when she was trying to help me explain the map activity, but she didn't really understand it herself and was trying to over-explain to the students and we ended up wasting a lot of time, for no discernible benefit. Retrospectively, it might be because there was no 'correct' or 'model' answer that it's a difficult activity for the teachers to get their heads round. Because the students have actually done really well with it.
To go back to teacher A (the one who translates everything), I think I will give it one more week and if her level of translation doesn't change, I need to say something. I'm not sure if it's better to speak to her quietly on her own, suggesting we up the challenge for the students, or if I should stand up in an English meeting and suggest that we need to up the percentage of English spoken in ALL the English classes and suggest that translations are only given for the students when they ask for them (they all know 'once more' and 'Japanese please' isn't hard!). Any suggestions on how to do this nicely? It's driving me insane and I think Jeff will make me sleep on the couch if I complain about her once more...
Sorry this turned into a big moan. I guess it's what's at the fore of my thinking at the moment, so it was inevitably going to come out in this blog. Sorry about that.
In all fairness (as I protest to Jeff), it's the first time I've felt really negative about my job. Usually I love my base school and had pretty cruisy teachers. But I guess I'm used to running the classes and two teachers suddenly putting the 'Assistant' back into 'Assistant Language Teacher' is hurting!
Oh, last thing. I've just been told that at the school festival on the 16th the English club can do something if they want. Actually we should have submitted an application ages ago, apparently. Only I'm always behind the times (not being able to read the newsletters!) and our older student who was supposed to be our rep at those meetings never actually attends anything, so we had kinda dropped off the face of the earth. So we now have three weeks to pull something together, when we only meet once a week! Yikes! The deal is we will have a space - a classroom I think - to decorate so parents and students wandering around the school can go and have a look. We will not be there ourselves. Previous groups have done things like 'how do you say this in English?' I'm drawing a blank right now. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have three girls who I meet with once a week, limited time and limited resources. What can we do? All suggestions appreciated!
Hope you're all having a good week. I'll try to be more positive on my next update! It probably doesn't help that I'm trying to study for this test in July and the more I study the more I realise I'll never get my shit together on time! Not a good feeling!
Anyway, have a good day. xo
No comments:
Post a Comment