Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts

November 11, 2011

Yes, I don't


"Joe? Do you understand?"

[Joe--Chinese name unknown to me--looks me in the eye. Rests his hands on his round belly, on the belt that encircles the belly perfectly, like the equator. Joe smiles. He is confident.]

"Yes, I don't."

Nobody captures Level One like Joe.

October 13, 2011

Have/Don't have

Eventually the adults in my ESL class form two lines, facing one another. I like to start with conversation, and away from desks. The further people are from paper and pens, the more they tend to focus on each other.

"Does everyone have a partner? ... Heidi, do you have a partner?"

Heidi--this is her English name--smiles, adorably, and kind of pokes into one of the lines.

"Mei you," she jokingly complains.

"Mei you?" I joke back. "Here, here, Senem is your partner."

Half the students in the class speak Mandarin, and they laugh. Even the others--the Turkish women, the Kurdish man, and the women from Iraq and Afghanistan--laugh. Mei you means "don't have." You means "have." The grammar and the pronunciation for these are easy, right? It's strange, I think, that I don't know more Mandarin. Or any Cantonese. So many people speak these languages in Vancouver. It would be nice to be able to make more jokes, to get more laughs.

June 9, 2011

Dear Mary


Dear Mary
Thank you for your dedicated teaching!
You're THE best teacher EVER and I really appreciate it.
Take care, Yoshi


Beat that, other professions!

May 19, 2011

"Fleas"


There are two sisters from Iraq in my Level 3 English class, a class provided for new immigrants to Canada. The two women are quiet, so I walk over and sit with them. Tonight I noticed one writing in Arabic under new words.

She was not translating, though. She was transliterating--putting the sounds of English into the writing of Arabic.

"Fleas" = Faa + Laam + Yaa + Miim (those are the letters)

I used to do exactly this in reverse! Figuring out how to represent Arabic in the Roman alphabet was a pet passion in Morocco! Some people use numbers. I used capital letters and accents.

Wednesday, I'll show the young women from Iraq my old lessons, which appear as a tangle of English, French, Arabic, and Arabic-transliterated-into-Roman-alphabet. Hopefully they will get a kick out of it.

October 8, 2010

Wiki Friday: Paulo Freire


He was an educator. In Brazil at his time (1920s-1960s), literacy was a requirement for voting in presidential elections. So he taught 300 sugarcane workers to read and write in 45 days.

July 6, 2010

A perfect day

For the writing portion of an exam, I asked my students to imagine "a perfect day."

"I wake up and I was so happy – extremely happy – I’ve finally taken all of my exams, by that time my best friend called me and that’s an important for him; he had his first date and he promised to the girl that someone will accompany him – I was this person – so I accepted. While I was talking into the phone, Grandma prepared the breakfast, I took a sit in front of the piscine and took it. Then Brahim arrived, and we went together.

As soon as we arrived Brahim became purple, I know that he has seen the girl. While I was parking my bike he began to ask for million time, What am I supposed to do? During the walk I began to ask myself what I’m going to do alone, but I quickly left my frustration she was with a friend of her – a very beautiful girl. I was charmed and I decided to do something, first, I told her some jokes, after this I had conversation with her, during this conversation I felt like a strange feeling – it was love. Suddenly I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend, I didn’t know what I was doing and thank’s god she accepted.

That the best moment of my life. When it was time to leave she gave me her number and we promised to see each other the end of day.

Brahim and I were like dreaming."

June 11, 2010

Soon I won't be a teacher

No more teaching outfits

No more students

No more arriving early

No more markers

No more lesson plans

No more attendance sheets

No more teacher’s books

No more whiteboards

No more “sh…”

No more student conflict

No more behavior problems

No more spelling things like an American

No more having to say, “I’m a Canadan, actually."

No more first day introductions

No more, “Here are the rules.”

May 25, 2010

Beginner Four


"Teacher, are you a vegetable?"

April 21, 2010

There's a Christian in my class!


His name is Christian, that is. He's Argentinean, and his father has a coffee machine company which brings the family to Morocco. 

Between Galapagos and here, my classes have been painfully mono-cultural. I miss teaching in Vancouver, with students from Mexico, Turkey, France, and Poland. Even in Saudi, I had students from Colombia and Peru. The conversations that stemmed from, "Well, in my country..." were countless and wonderful.

At last, diversity!

March 18, 2010

Best thing about showing Avatar in class


The movie ends. My Beginner 5 students are packing up.

"Teacher?"

[I turn]

"Yes, Ismail?"

[Ismail, now gazing into my eyes:]

"I see you."

December 4, 2009

Teaching makes me laugh

New technology was the topic of conversation in Intermediate 6. 

"Can you even imagine life before internet?" I asked them.

Everyone was quiet. Zouhair raised his hand.

"Teacher, it was very hard."

November 4, 2009

I heart my Intermediate 1 class


So, what were we talking about last week?

Experiences!

Bravo. Can you give me an example of a good experience?

Visiting the moon!

Absolutely, Ayman. That is going on the board.

July 7, 2009

Women


Heather is my housemate and the teacher for Level 1. A student asked her why we add "wo" to men to make women. Why, indeed? Heather explained that "wo" comes from the Hebrew "superior to." The students nodded.

July 1, 2009

Wonderful Tonight


One of the best things about teaching is making your students do what you want, like listen to Eric Clapton. To my surprise and delight, some of the older ones even sang along. We all joined in for the hugely sappy ending:

And then I tell her, as I turn out the light,
I say, "My darling, you were wonderful tonight.
Oh, my darling, you were wonderful tonight."

*Note the tell/say contrast, depending on the presence of an object pronoun. Yeah, baby.

June 20, 2009

Teaching makes me laugh


"Write an email to a tourist who wants to visit the Galapagos."

In Galapagos, we have much seafood, like octopusy.

***

Please, what is the difference between:

bear
beer
beard
bird

***

Luis.

Yes, Teacher?

What's my name?

Mary.

So call me Mary.

Yes, Teacher.

May 6, 2009

Classic


Me: Fredy, are you going to cook tonight?

Fredy: Umm... [considers the question]... HUNGRY!

I love Level One.

April 28, 2009

montar vs. mostrar


I forgot to share this little gem of embarrassment with you. It's the first day with my morning Level One'ers. I announce the break. Valeria asks where the bathroom is. To show the class I am bilingual-savvy, I answer in Spanish.

Está por allá. Si quieres, puedo te montar.

It's over there. If you want, I can mount you.

Niiiice.
 
montar (to mount) vs. mostrar (to show)

The whole class just looks at me in a suspension of tongues until I realize what I've said. And then blushing. And then laughter. If you're on board with making a fool of yourself, then these experiences are the best teachers of all. Five years from now, I will be as confident about these two verbs as I am now. Gidyup!

(Image via NC-4H)

Level One


We have an exam today and I'm really excited, because my students are going to pass. They're Level One, which means they aren't confused yet.

They arrived five weeks ago with blank canvases. We have written words. We have drawn lines. But we have preserved space around the words and the lines. The paper isn't crowded. Eventually, inevitably, we will scribble and cross out and cover this first draft, because language learning is messy. Which is why perfectionists suffer and creative people excel. 

Do you know the word palimpsest?

April 17, 2009

Imagine


Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No Hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

At which point Daisy Vera interrupts the song to ask if John Lennon is an atheist. Which makes me incredibly happy, because she must be understanding the lyrics.

Level 1 has been working on contractions with "to be" (there's, it's) and prepositions of location (above, below) so this song is perfect. It also brings up yet another example of, "Ok, in Spanish you say... but in English, there are two words for that." In this case:

cielo = sky / Heaven

More:

esperar = to wait / to hope

decir = to tell / to say

casa = house / home

If we believe in the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, these differences are important; they dictate our experience in the world. In English, we can wait even when hope is gone, we can tell people things without saying a word, and we can sit in the house and miss home. We can deny Heaven without the sky falling. So maybe we should change the lyrics: Imagine there's no Heaven/It's easy if you speak English.

April 15, 2009

Me entiendes?


At my last school in Vancouver, students who asked Comment ca va? or Nasilsiniz? were sent home. Did I agree with the English-only policy? Yes and no. Yes, because it prevented groups of Saudis and Mexicans and so on from lumping together, and pushed them to mix and become friends in English. No, because it tied my hands in class. 

For example, I say "There is." Nehir looks at me with puppy dog eyes that say, "Translate. Please. Just translate." I want to say var, but instead I give examples, draw pictures, and dance around like a freaking mime. Nehir knows I know the Turkish, so naturally she's frustrated. Plus, we're missing out on the fun of comparing languages (e.g. did you know Turkish has no verb for "to have?"). Surely there's a productive middle ground between this and my terrible 7th grade French class, taught all in English.

Right now, I'm looking for this middle ground in my Level 1 class. Of course, it's handy that they all speak Spanish. I don't worry about discriminating against the Iranian in the corner because I don't speak Spanish and Farsi. Your thoughts?