Hello, my name is Wes Ehrlichman. I am Kedouin's new
assistant English teacher. When I first got here I was very
worried about teaching, but now that I have settled in a
little bit it is much better.
So far, this is all true, I actually got over being nervous
after my first day of teaching though.
When we first began class I was shocked at how much
English the students already knew. Even the first year middle
school students! It has made my job much easier to have
students that can already speak some English.
This is true. They can already answer questions
like, "What did you do last weekend." That's why
it baffles me when someone will get stuck on something like,
"What do you play?" Some of the grammar is way
off too. They say things like, "I don't baseball."
Just to know those words is really good though. Think about
how many English people can say I don't like baseball in
Japanese. I don't even know if I can! (for the record, it's
"Yakyu ga suki ja nai" I think...)
I team teach with Mrs. Kume right now. She is substituting
for Mr. Eto because he broke his elbow. It's really good
for the students to have both of us there because I help
with pronunciation, and Mrs. Kume helps them to understand
the textbook. We make a great team!
At first it was a little awkward. Mrs. Kume was leaving
me in charge of most of the classes, but when she realized
that I didn't know what I was doing she took up most of
the slack. Now she plans a lot of the class and I ask what
we're doing before class and get stuff going. Sometimes
the book is really bad though. There was a practice test
with this as a question:
True or False. The underlined vowels sound the
same:
alive
live
The answer is that they don't, even though they
do sound the same sometimes, like if you're talking about
live music, or a live animal. Just not when you're asking
where do you live. Stuff like this makes team teaching hard.
She's usually going by what the book says and I have to
go by what I know to be true. Honestly though, if you haven't
lived in an English speaking country you won't think of
things like this. At any rate, without Mrs. Kume I would
just stand in front of the class and get blank stares the
entire time. So together we make a great team.
One thing that really surprised me is how different
every class is. Sometimes the students are very quiet and
shy, and sometimes they are extremely noisy and disruptive.
I never know what to expect!
This isn't totally true. You can know what to expect
because the classes always have the same kids in them. There's
always the same kids that act up, the same kids that put
away their books in the middle of class, and the same kids
that can't keep their heads off of their desks. My method
to deal with these kids is to bother them or do the group
activities in their group. This makes sure that they are
participating instead of just being a brat.
I try to use a game to get the students settled down
a little bit, and ready for learning. This game varies from
day to day, and I think that coming up with interesting
games, or interesting questions for the games is one of
my favorite parts of teaching.
This is true too. Every day we start class with a game.
I try to throw in a new game every week or two to keep the
kids on their toes. This is the one thing I feel like I
actually do well in. Not every day though, sometimes it
takes me a whole minute of silence just to come up with,
"what do you play." Luckily Kedouin's country
people are fairly patient.
On Tuesdays through Fridays I visit Kedouin's four
Elementary Schools. I definitely wasn't prepared for the
elementary school. They're so hyper!
This should actually be two different paragraphs. The truth
is, I wasn't prepared at all for elementary school. I didn't
know if I was going to play a game, or if I was going to
teach a song, and even then I didn't know what songs or
games I was going to teach. Luckily the teachers walked
me through a few things. The introductions in the elementary
school were awesome because I let the kids ask me whatever
they want, and if they get into it they're eventually asking
me my girlfriend's eye color, if I like Harry Potter, and
if I think the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are scary. I'm
kind of sad that I don't have elementary school self introductions
anymore. The other truth is that they are so hyper. These
kids are so hyper that one day after class a first grader
hit me in the unmentionables and then started talking about
sausage and meatballs. I quickly ran to the teachers room
to hide and he stood at the doorway taunting me. It was
very nutty, and much more playful than it sounds. At least
he didn't give me the finger enema, which is another thing
these kids are known to do to unsuspecting foreign English
teachers.
The Teachers are a huge help here. Together we decide
what to teach, and then they help as much as they can during
class. It's really fun!
This is totally true. There is no way I could do elementary
school classes without the teachers, even if they don't
talk much in class because they can't speak English. The
preparation we do before class makes any language barriers
that would prevent class from running well break down and
we actually get something done every week. A lot of schools
decide that they don't need me about half of the time though.
I'm not sure what it's about, but I end up staying at the
junior high school a lot.
Overall I really like teaching in Kedouin. I actually
look forward to coming to class every day! Even if the students
don't...
This is the closest thing to a blatant lie that I have
on here. I don't particularly enjoy going to class, in fact
I always check the schedule to find out when I don't have
class so that I know when I have time to prepare for my
adult english convesation clubs or my elementary school
classes. When I get to class though, and it's one of the
great ones where the students are really into it, it's really
a great feeling. Today in one of my 9th grade classes about
80% of the class had their hands up to read a skit. One
kid wanted to be called on so bad that he was standing on
his chair with his hand raised so that it was almost touching
the ceiling and he was yelling, "PICK ME!!!" I
had a smile on my face the whole time. It was really fun.
To me, this is what makes the job worthwhile. Seeing kids
have fun in class.
