Wanting more
Yesterday had its ups and downs. The students I see on Tuesday's have earned themselves a reputation of being quiet and unwilling to participate in class, so I am always a tad apprehensive as I head to work that day of the week. I have noticed that I too am slightly unwilling to give as much of myself to them.
There are times when I ask a simple question to the class and suddenly, as I look out at the class, all heads have shifted carefully and slowly in order to avoid eye contact with me. First, I give them the benefit of the doubt: that they did not understand the question. I phrase it again, slowly and clearly. Same response. Then, I feel a mixture of dissapointment and frustration. I am tempted to move on, but instead I wait. I look out at them and I silently count to ten in my head. By 'seven', we are practically suffocating in akward silence, but it is rare that a student is willing to break the ice with a response. Then, I move on and I sense that my point has been made. This is an approach a veteran foriegn teacher suggested to me. Its excruciating, but I must find a way to reach my Tuesday students.
This week, the students gave presentations on regions of the United States they have been studying for a couple of weeks. Many of them were visibly nervous in front of the class--wavering voices, looking only at the map or at the floor. The most common mistakes they made were in pronunciation. "Th" sounds like "Z" (souzwest, zis and zat), Virginia turns to "Wurginia", and quite often an "uh" sound blurs one word into the next. Theseuhmistakesuhare ubiquitous amongst Chinese English speakers. It is not as if the English is beyond comprehension, but it would be nice to find a way to get the students to think about these details as they speak. My Wednesday students are very playful and talkative. The two hours flow smoothly with them, and it always feels we have made some progress. We did pronunciation drills today, really exaggerating the movement of our tongue and lips. I cringed throughout the whole excercise because I felt I was insulting their intelligence by asking them to repeat after me over and over. But, in fact, I was pleased to see that it made a difference in the clarity of the presentations today.
I think I am finally warming up to the idea of what it means to be a teacher. In other words, for the first 5 weeks, I was hesitant to correct the students. I was quite happy to teach, but I delicately tried to avoid pointing out their mistakes. With many students, it feels like trying to coax a shy kitten to come over to you. You don't want to make any sudden movements and scare it back into the corner. You have to be encouraging. Today, I was more critical (constructively) and it paid off.
My fear is that some students are thinking: Who is this young, rich, American kid and what are her qualifications anyway?
Ah well, English class is mandatory for them and it just so happens I am fluent in English, so here we are. Each day is something new and different. I am sometimes frustrated with cultural differences and my inability to have a meaningful conversation with anyone Chinese. I also get cramped with the feeling that there are some topics that are tabboo here, feeling like there is a big elephant in the room that nobody will recognize. I want to know what they think about the television strategically going blank for seconds at a time during the news or about not being able to access some web pages, but in this indescribable way I feel like their lips are sealed or their level of English fluency just won't permit it. Pride, fear..? Perhaps we just haven't found the right setting for it yet. And I suppose we haven't been here that long.
Today had ups and downs and stops! I got my brakes fixed.
There are times when I ask a simple question to the class and suddenly, as I look out at the class, all heads have shifted carefully and slowly in order to avoid eye contact with me. First, I give them the benefit of the doubt: that they did not understand the question. I phrase it again, slowly and clearly. Same response. Then, I feel a mixture of dissapointment and frustration. I am tempted to move on, but instead I wait. I look out at them and I silently count to ten in my head. By 'seven', we are practically suffocating in akward silence, but it is rare that a student is willing to break the ice with a response. Then, I move on and I sense that my point has been made. This is an approach a veteran foriegn teacher suggested to me. Its excruciating, but I must find a way to reach my Tuesday students.
This week, the students gave presentations on regions of the United States they have been studying for a couple of weeks. Many of them were visibly nervous in front of the class--wavering voices, looking only at the map or at the floor. The most common mistakes they made were in pronunciation. "Th" sounds like "Z" (souzwest, zis and zat), Virginia turns to "Wurginia", and quite often an "uh" sound blurs one word into the next. Theseuhmistakesuhare ubiquitous amongst Chinese English speakers. It is not as if the English is beyond comprehension, but it would be nice to find a way to get the students to think about these details as they speak. My Wednesday students are very playful and talkative. The two hours flow smoothly with them, and it always feels we have made some progress. We did pronunciation drills today, really exaggerating the movement of our tongue and lips. I cringed throughout the whole excercise because I felt I was insulting their intelligence by asking them to repeat after me over and over. But, in fact, I was pleased to see that it made a difference in the clarity of the presentations today.
I think I am finally warming up to the idea of what it means to be a teacher. In other words, for the first 5 weeks, I was hesitant to correct the students. I was quite happy to teach, but I delicately tried to avoid pointing out their mistakes. With many students, it feels like trying to coax a shy kitten to come over to you. You don't want to make any sudden movements and scare it back into the corner. You have to be encouraging. Today, I was more critical (constructively) and it paid off.
My fear is that some students are thinking: Who is this young, rich, American kid and what are her qualifications anyway?
Ah well, English class is mandatory for them and it just so happens I am fluent in English, so here we are. Each day is something new and different. I am sometimes frustrated with cultural differences and my inability to have a meaningful conversation with anyone Chinese. I also get cramped with the feeling that there are some topics that are tabboo here, feeling like there is a big elephant in the room that nobody will recognize. I want to know what they think about the television strategically going blank for seconds at a time during the news or about not being able to access some web pages, but in this indescribable way I feel like their lips are sealed or their level of English fluency just won't permit it. Pride, fear..? Perhaps we just haven't found the right setting for it yet. And I suppose we haven't been here that long.
Today had ups and downs and stops! I got my brakes fixed.
posted by B | 4:05 AM
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