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September 24, 2008
Thoughts from "Teacher"
So, I've been teaching for a week and a half now, and it's still kind of a strange experience. As in, it's still strange to be addressed as "Teacher." I'm planning on sprinkling anecdotes from class here and there from now own, but I'll just start with a few basic observations.
Firstly, every once in a while, especially when I'm working with my low-intermediate class, or reading some of my students' essays in Essay Writing, I feel like I'm teaching at Yuma High School, the fine institution I attended, gold medal class of aught-four ("Home of the Criminals"). But these are university students, working on important things like chemistry or Angkorean engravings, at one of the best universities in the country. Why does it feel like high school? Well, probably there's a small cultural difference, in terms of what it means to act adult, and how students are expected to act. Further, I'm not sure if most American students acted the way my rather strange peers did. My students do like to watch a lot of TV, after all. Apparently "Desperate Housewives" is a hit over here, too. So maybe it's just because I'm dealing with "normal" students again.
Probably, though, it's because I'm dealing with students who aren't english majors. They're trying to express thoughts with a limited vocabulary, and aren't necessarily used to english forms of experssion. I know that during my three required semesters of spanish study in college, I would occaisionally break out into Borgesian speculations (as my poor vocabulary let me), but I'm pretty sure I was in the minority. I'm seeing these people in a very limited social context, anyway, so I'm sure they act differently around their friends than they do around me, their teacher.
They're not bad students. Most of my "young scholars" (a term I have come to like using for some strange reason) in Essay Writing are familiar with the formulaic moves of an essay, to be sure. Apparently that's a lot better than what my roommate chris had last year in Hong Kong--very skilled english speakers with no idea how to put an essay together. But they seem used to deploying the quasi-official arguments fed to them by past teachers. Happily, some of them mentioned their hopes to get beyond this thanks to the class, so I suspect that I will probably end up focusing on critical thinking, and creative argumentation, with some grammar and clarity thrown in for good measure. Cambodians sometimes have trouble with tense and subject/verb agreements, mostly because they don't really have anything comparable in Khmer.
I've discovered I'm very good at the performative aspect of teaching. I have a pretty good associative memory for connecting current material with past lessons, and can turn practically anything into a teaching moment. My lessons often arrive steeped in the western tradition (as forged by a "Great Books" sequence I took in college, and by random quotations I've read on loading screens for computer games like Rome: Total War), using concepts like Socrates' "a mob of men is not an army any more than a pile of building materials is a house" to explain why an essay needs structure. I'm thinking of discussing creativity in terms of the metaphor of the bee taking from many flowers, but creating something new. If you have any idea for exercises that unlock critical thinking, get people speaking in their own words, or encourage creativity in a way that non-english majors would enjoy, let me know.
I do, however, have two problems currently: I lapse into english that can be too fast or complicated for the young scholars of RUPP, and I haven't been planning my lessons over a long term. I arrive in the morning, think about what's in the book, and then draw up a brief lesson plan for today based on where I think we need to go. If I want to have handouts or worksheets of my own devising, I need to think about it earlier than the morning beforehand. Also, I lack the energy to sustain high-octane performative teaching for the entire 160 minutes a day, but that's probably for the best; I need to make sure to put them into pair and group work more often anyway. With that said, it's not too bad, at least until I have to start grading.
Posted by flynn at September 24, 2008 5:37 PM
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Comments
Two things that don't surprise me:
That you lapse into complicated English (hey, forget the young scholars of RUPP, some very educated mothers in the U.S. don't understand you either).
That you haven't been planning your lessons out long term, but a day at a time the morning of. Who would have guessed?
The lesson for the teacher would appear to be that just as an essay needs structure, so does a class ... and while you may be an excellent tap dancer, even you cannot give them the ol' razzle-dazzle nonstop every day.
Glad to see a new post, please keep them coming! You have many fans out here in cyberland.
Posted by: Ann at September 25, 2008 6:05 AM
To defend myself against impressions that I'm not providing any arc or substance, The RUPP provides us with a very good curriculum that I and all my co-teachers are working through, and we hammered out a course outline during meetings the week before classes started. Secondly, the first few weeks are always a bit more touch-and-go, as you figure out the level of your students. After Pchum Ben Days (The Buddhist Day of the Dead, coming up next week) I should have more time.
Posted by: Flynn at September 25, 2008 12:59 PM
You shouldn't be defensive; I stand in awe of you (and teachers in general) ... it seems like such a challenge even in the best of circumstances, but more so with the language and cultural hurdles you also have to surmount. So huzzah!!! to you and your young scholars. It sounds like you are doing really well so far, and I am inordinately proud of you for apparently settling in so quickly and so well!
That said, it seems a bit of advance planning would help to ease your way ... I'm sure that you'll find a balance as you go along. And just think how easy it will all seem by next term!
Posted by: Ann at September 25, 2008 1:26 PM