This week's flurry of activity with classes was something that I had been anxiously yearning for the past couple weeks. It was a phenomenal feeling not only to have a defined sense of purpose again but also to simply be back in the classroom, among students who are grappling with their course material. Thursday I returned to classes at the university and sat in on a language and grammar course, the first course which I had attended in which I felt I could be of real assistance in teaching. I also attended a course called an integrative workshop by this training institute. Specifically designed to be more general in its content, this course allows students to practice what they have learned in phonetics and language & grammar courses, as well as encourages the application of knowledge from their other linguistics and pedagogical courses. The teaching institute at which I am working is structured as such so that all students of the first year take the same courses, second year students share a collection of courses, and so on up through the fourth and final year. Although I have only observed the program for one week, I am highly in favor of the element that this integrative course brings to the students' academic experiences. I think it gives each student a practical chance to reinforce important grammatical and linguistic concepts and (hopefully) rethink critically other cultural and pedagogical theories presented to them in other courses.
Monday I will have my first experience in front of a class! One instructor who has to attend a professional association board meeting on Monday morning has asked me to stand in for her. While her course is normally a language and grammar course, I won't be conquering a lesson by myself this time around. Instead, she has asked me to have a discussion hour so that her students can, primarily, practice speaking, learn more about cultural values around leisure time and get to know me a bit better. I'm excited to see how the students respond to the class discussion activities I have planned!
I also returned to volunteer this past Friday in two classes of junior high English at the school across the plaza from where I live. Although I felt relatively scattered in my presentation to the first class, I think I made some key changes and hit the nail on the head in the second course. My cultural lesson for these students: A Typical School Day in the U.S. In both classes, we worked on developing some new English vocabulary related to the school environment. Taking a closer look at the chronological arrangement of a student's schedule was probably the most enlightening, and easily most entertaining part of my lesson for the students. Their jaws dropped and there was widespread laughter as I shared about: a chart to track students' punctuality in turning in homework, how students all eat lunch at school together, and how dinner is eaten at 7:00 pm followed not too long thereafter with going to bed. In contrast, these students are accustomed to having no homework (Claudia, their teacher shared with me that she has basically been prohibited from officially giving her students homework), being at home with their families for lunch, and eating dinner at a much later hour like 10:00 pm which dramatically changes their bedtime as well. I can just see the situation that would materialize should one of these students move to the US or study as an exchange student... Nine o'clock rolls around after dinner and that whiny voice emerges, But Mom, I'm not tired! :) One thing is for certain: in the three short hours that I spend at this school, the students teach me as much, if not more, than I end up teaching them. I'm definitely going to enjoy volunteering with them.
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