The joys of teaching

I am still figuring out how to be a teacher and how to teach English. I had some experience working as an English language assistant in France and the certificate course I recently took also gave me some more ideas, but I think a lot of learning how to teach comes with practise. At the one academy where I primarily work, I mostly have conversation classes with groups of adults. The attendance is a little sporadic and the level of English of the different students is quite varied. I try to only speak in English during the classes, but at times this can be a little challenging. During one of my last classes I was trying to explain the importance of the correct pronunciation of the word ´beach´ so as not to have it confused with the word ´bitch´ and it took a really long time.

I also have a number of private classes, which are mostly one-on-one conversation hours that sometimes make me feel a little like a journalist trying to think up questions to encourage the students to talk. For these classes I try to bring pictures and/or articles to have a topic to discuss.

For about a week and a half I was substitute teaching at one academy and got to have classes with groups of children. That academy closely followed textbooks to prepare students for Trinity and Cambridge exams. One day after leaving a class I had with a group of ten year olds felt great and I thought I had at last found my calling . Then the next day I had a disastrous class with a group of four year olds. The class got off to a bad start when the tv and vcr weren´t working, so the idea of singing some songs along with a video was quickly scratched from the plan. The students knew some colours and some numbers. For a while I kept the students busy with some activities in their books which involved colouring pictures, but that didn´t last very long. I tried then to quickly think of a simple song involving numbers or colours, but when I started to explain it to them I lost control of the class. They decided whenever I drew something on the board they would all jump up and run to the board to pretend to eat whatever picture I drew. As I put the marker to the board I heard them saying ´vamos a comer´ and they thought it was a wonderful game. I managed to quiet them down for a little while by separating a few of them, but they didn´t want to sit still. All the while the parents were waiting just outside the class could hear everything. Luckily the moment when the director came to check in there were only a couple of the students sprawled on the floor.

I am learning that with children you need a lot of games. In the appartment with the two boys I try to get them to do activities with me in English. The mother, who is an English teacher here, has given me lots of ideas. We have played ´Simon Says´, Bingo with animal pictures, Memory repeating the names of different animals, ´Hot-Cold´ hiding objects, etc. Some days go better than others because often playing football (soccer) and watching the Simpsons are more interesting than playing English games.