Sorry I haven’t blogged as much lately. Things have been very hectic as we are in the middle of final exams for semester 1. It has meant lots of revision sheets for the classes and then correcting and going over important grammar and vocabulary the students really need to brush up on.
Also I have been in the middle of making tests for my classes. This involves a lot of work as I don’t tend to recycle old tests other teachers made before my time at the school unless they are ones I created and I have used before.
Teaching non natives a language that to them is complex and it is even to a native when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it all. Thai doesn’t have tense changes. There isn’t present simple, present continuous, past simple and so on. There aren’t the 3 verb forms like, go – went – gone and so forth.
So to these students at times it must be really hard for them when their English books are going on about, Is it present simple or present continuous? Passive and active voices and so forth are all so confusing for them and this is where the fun of teaching comes into it for us. We have to be able to communicate and present this entire English syllabus to them in an easy and also try and make it fun at the same time.
I do enjoy this challenge immensely and especially with the older students in years 11 and 12. When you make something that they just don’t understand finally click in their heads and you see that they do understand what they have been studying and start using it in everyday classroom activities is an uplifting experience.
I remember some students came to me a while back asking me about “reported or indirect speech”. They just couldn’t get their heads around it. The other teacher had presented it to them one way and they were butting heads against a brick wall.
It wasn’t part of the curriculum that I was teaching them but was going to come up later on in the course. I simply brought it forward a bit to help them out. The first class we spent the entire lesson of students just saying sentences to me and I would write them on the board and then I reported what they said.
Student: I went to my friend’s house last night.
Me: He said he went to his friend’s house last night.
Student: I like to watch movies.
Me: She said she likes to watch movies.
And so forth. We went over the different tenses and the pronoun and possessive changes. It took 3 lessons of 50 minutes and most of the kids had it down pat. I could get someone to say something and write it on the board and then pick another student to report what they had said.
When the other teacher found out this he was rapt and used this approach for his other class and it worked a treat as well he said. I am the same and have had lessons that I was not too sure on how to approach on a level that the kids were going to understand. You ask another teacher and bounce ideas off of each other and then all of a sudden you have something that you can work with.
Sometimes you walk into the class full of confidence thinking that they are going to understand the lesson easily and walk out of the class with egg on your face as the students couldn’t get their heads around what you were teaching.
You have to think on your feet often and if something isn’t working you need to change the way you are presenting it so you don’t lose the kids. This challenge I enjoy as it keeps me on my toes and also makes me research what I am teaching pretty thoroughly so that I can with confidence change the way I am presenting something and I know what I am teaching is correct.
Being a teacher of a language to non native speakers is a great challenge and also very rewarding. Of course there are days when everything goes wrong and you cannot wait to get home but these are pretty rarely for me. I have a very good strong hold on my classes that I teach. They are well behaved for me and know when it’s time to stop fooling around and study. I have read about uncontrollable classes and students that just do whatever they like in classrooms.
I lay the rules down the first week of class and stick to them like shit sticks to fur. If students know they will be punished for bad behaviour and rewarded for good behaviour they usually won’t step over that imaginary line on the floor. When someone does, you have to punish the student. It doesn’t matter if it is the best student in the class or the worst student in the class. You cannot play favourtism for a second.
So after tomorrow I have 4 weeks holiday that I am really looking forward to and spending sometime on the golf course with my friends. I haven’t played for a while and really miss the fresh air and fun and frustration that chasing a small white ball around can do for the human mind and soul.
So sorry to the people who have commented on my posts and I will catch up with all of you and reply in the coming days as soon as the marking and then paperwork is finished and submitted.
Brunty
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