My second day of class went much better as I was able to prepare more appropriately for the level my students are at. Friday though was exhausting and by the end of the day I was ready to collapse. A solid night's sleep has helped me prepare for the weekend. I have several activities to go to, although if I had my way I would just chill and read in my room.
I am really fortunate to be getting TESOL training in conjunction with teaching some English classes. Anisha and Rochell have been here five months and are just now getting the training, so I am thankful to be receiving it right off the bat. Not only that, but having a class to teach makes the material much more real for me and adds to my motivation to learn this stuff, especially when most days I am using whatever I learned that morning in class that same evening.
Some of you may be puzzled as to how I can teach English when I don't speak Thai. I didn't think this would be an issue because I thought the students would be at a higher level, but I cannot give instructions in spoken English because for the most part I just get blank stares. Well, I've been told there is a reason they've stuck a bunch of non-Thai speaking English teachers in the classroom. As I encountered my first class day, Thai students are excruciatingly shy and terrified of making mistakes. Therefore they don't want to take the plunge and try speaking English. Apparently their Thai teachers end up just teaching them in Thai because they cannot get them to communicate in English. We, however, do not have that option so it's either sink or swim. Unfortunately I think the fact that I am a native English speaker makes the students even more hesitant to speak in front of me, but that is why my trying to learn Thai from them was so good. In a sense I got to model for them the behavior I wanted to see by just trying and making (I'm sure) horrendous mistakes.
That being said, I would be having a much tougher time of it if they weren't able to read fluently. After experiencing many painful silences my first class day, I noticed that it helped if I wrote things down. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, I'm still learning to slow down when I speak and to pause more frequently. This is more difficult than you might think because one: standing in front of a group of people during a period of absolute silence is terrifying and two: speech is so instantaneous that it is difficult to monitor what words you are using and how fast you're talking. The other reason has to do with the differences between Thai and English. Thai focuses on vowel sounds. If you use a long 'a' sound instead of a short 'a' sound, you end up saying a completely different word. But English is the exact opposite if you think about it. Think of all the different accents in English. What's different about them? The vowel sounds. I can say 'bag' with a long 'a' and still be understood, even if I am mocked for my regional dialect. This would make if very difficult for a Thai speaker to understand spoken English because, as I am learning in TESOL, there is no such thing as "standard" English pronunciation. We like to think of the way we speak as "standard" and of anyone who speaks differently as "deviant." But that's a pretty prideful conception if you think about it.
Another difficulty arises from the tonal nature of Thai. In addition to vowel sounds needing to be exact, Thai words can mean different things based on vocal tone. For instance, the word "mai" can mean "no," "wood," "burn," or "no?" depending on if it is spoken in low tone, mid tone, high tone, rising tone, or falling tone. Luckily, there are only five. I wish I could show you my phonology chart. High rising tone? Rising-falling tone? Yeesh. When Thais try to speak English, they have a hard time with putting stress on the appropriate syllable. More often not, the stress ends up on the last syllable with rising inflection. FeeLING. WatER. HappY. SpeakING. EngLISH. In order to be understood, many farang have taken to mimicking this style. "TaXI! I GO to marKET. How MUCH?" While this may get the message across, it's harmful in that Thais don't get exposed to naturally spoken English and so it kind of exacerbates the problem. I had even started doing this without realizing it but caught myself after it was brought up in TESOL class. Now I'm hypersensitive to it and cringe whenever I hear it.
After day one of teaching, my primary goal has been to create a safe environment for my students where they feel comfortable speaking in front of each other and in front of me. Our methods teacher, Philip, has been really helpful regarding this by giving us many ideas for games and icebreakers that can be used in the classroom. I've been starting off with a simple "get to know each other" game where you toss a ball around while introducing yourself. I change it up every time so that we progress to greeting the other people in the circle and then saying where we're from etc. It's really great because it doesn't require much explanation and gets them speaking right away.
On day one, I tried to follow this with "the name tag game" which some of you may have played in other language classes. Basically, you write your name and a number that is significant to you or your "favorite" on the top of your name tag and then you draw one thing you like, one thing you dislike and one thing you are good at on the bottom. Then everyone gets up and mingles and tries to guess what everything on the name tag means. I had limited success with this though because it required more explanation. In fact, many of the games Philip recommended proved too challenging for my students because they require them to think on their feet and come up with their own vocabulary. The best I can do is have them write out sentences beforehand which they can then read aloud to one another, but this takes them a considerable amount of time.
Thursday I took a very different approach and used a lot of the materials that Ruth from the women's retreat had sent me. It was actually pretty successful except that they spent so much time writing that they didn't do much speaking AND that I was doing more instructing and less interacting. Friday another CV wanted me to combine classes with her. I was a little nervous about doing this but decided to go along with it. But even so it was okay because I only had two students show up and by combining we were able to have six and do some larger group activities.
My two main challenges are that my students aren't confident enough/don't know enough to provide their own English vocabulary, so I'm struggling with how to find ways to incorporate vocabulary into class activities. The other thing is that the focus is supposed to be spoken English and conversation, but I'm noticing confusion about things like plural nouns, possessives and even simple mistakes regarding verb conjugation. So how much should I address these problems? I mean, not only is it not really the intention of the course, but they're not open enough to receive correction without taking it personally, so it could be counterproductive. However, they need to speak with proper grammar, so it does sort of automatically become part of my responsibility. But then I can't communicate clearly with them, so I'm limited in how much I can teach. I'm trying to find a balance.
But it's a fascinating challenge and I find I can't stop thinking about my students and various strategies that I could use to help them. So yes, I am enjoying teaching in that sense. I know this will surprise some of you because I've always been anti-teaching, but this is for a couple of reasons. One, I've never felt strongly called to teaching and I've encountered enough teachers who were in the profession only because they couldn't think of anything else to do. I didn't want to be one of these. I mean, I think you should really want to be teaching if you're going to take on that role. Especially with music I feel like there's a definite "those who can, play. Those who can't, teach" mentality. Also, I never relished the idea of managing bratty students and I don't really like working with kids. At all. I've lucked out here because I was warned that Thai students are not very diligent and only pay attention when they want to. My students though are wonderful! They are very respectful and are trying hard, even though they are unsure of themselves. So that helps.
I don't yet know if teaching is something I would like to continue doing after this year, either with ESL or music or something else, but it's an option. If I truly feel I have something to offer that students could benefit from then I would be less reticent about teaching as a vocation. I'm still trying to find a place for music, and even music performance, in my life after college so there is that as well. But I am glad to have this opportunity and am learning a lot.
Also, thank you Google for making me aware that today is Robert Louis Stevenson's 160th birthday.
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there
5 comments:
What a great update, Heidi. Thanks for sharing what your learning and how it corresponds to your class. It's fascinating to see language learning from the opposite perspective. Of course, I don't have much technical training, but one thing I learned as a Live Lab Leader at Whitworth was to take what you can get as far as speaking is concerned. I think, especially as you have recognized that they will take correction personally, it may be best to let them make the mistakes, for a while at least, just to keep them talking. You might try repeating what they've said, but in correct form. That way you're modeling but not correcting, per se. Especially as so much conversation time can be sucked away if you start in to a grammar lesson. On that last point, I definitely do speak from experience. :)
I was hoping you had seen that Google tribute.
I have finally caught up with your posts. They are so insightful.(When it comes to women's events, I agree with your assessment entirely.) You really bring your experiences home for us. Kudos to you.
You've had a rough and busy week. I am so glad that you've figured out some kind of game plan. You know me, I'd defer to the other CV too. I believe that you'll find your sea-legs, so to speak. I always thought you had something to offer as a teacher. I learned so much just by sitting by you in band. We're both discovering little talents we didn't know we had.
It's so fascinating to hear all you're learning while you're teaching, Heidi. I'm sure your students will continue to grow to trust and feel safe around you and in your classroom with their peers and I'm excited to hear about the progress they make in speaking English and what you learn from them along the way. Keep up the hard work and creativity, my friend. :)
I'm impressed. You're a natural in the classroom. Good instincts. Thanks for the vivid details.
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