Come on teacher, teach me something. Don't just fill my head with nothing....

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Before I started writing this blog i was reading others. I'd always wonder why there were big gaps of time between entries with people. I get it now. You lose track of time. Not everyday is exciting, and most are mundane. One day bleeds to the next.



Teaching English is a wierd experience. You speak the language your whole life and then suddenly start selling that ability as a commodity to be gained by people. I feel, more often then not, like im some sort of actor with a lesson plan as a script.

Teaching grammer has got to be one of the biggest loads of shit out there for someone like me. I know what to say, how to spell it and how it should sound....but if you ask me what present continuous tense is I'll most likely start laughing. Most of these kids have been studying English in school since they were young and know grammer better than you do. You soon get use to saying, ''Ah, I was just testing you!'' when you explain something wrong and a kid half your age corrects you. A trick of the trade that seems to be working well.

I have classes that range for 3 years old to 25. I just started my first 3-5 year old class and it has turned out to be one of the toughest. I have been teaching kids a few years older then that and it had been quite easy. Acting silly and ridiculous has never been very hard for me and slipping in a bit of english vocab is a breeze... But with 3 year olds, their attention span is shorter then a finger nail and they cry at the drop of a hat. One flashy object passes a window and they are gone. One sentence to much and they are wandering around a classroom looking for things that only they can see. It's all about keeping it fast and entertaining with education mixed in. It makes me understand the chaos of childrens television and has now been what i model my classes after.

The 6 to 10 year olds are all about disciplin and fun. Give them to much and they will take more. A class can go from little angels to demon spawn in a matter of seconds if you give them to much slack. You want them to have fun but they also need to learn and be able to tell thier parents. All fun and no work means Josh gets in shit. It's a balance. I remeber in grade school, when the whole class would start going crazy and your teacher would get mad, bring out some sort of exorcist voice, and you would suddenly have a dull silence fill the classroom. Now I am the one causing that when I have to, chanelling my father's stern voice or something, and getting the kids to settle down. It's super wierd.

11-15s are a strange age to teach. The kids are just starting to enter highschool by the end of it and you see the personaities drop down or change. Kids are more quiet and not willing to make mistakes. They're very aware of thier social standings in a classroom and hierarchies begin to emerge. You have smart confident kids. The loud, not so smart kids. The smart quiet ones who hide in the back. The class clown. All these kids prepairing the roles they will live out for the rest of thier school lives. That sounds bleak but i think its just the way school is.



Most of my adult classes range from 19 to 25. They can be the hardest and the most rewarding. The grammer classes are shit but sometimes you will have a class were you start a discussion and everyone has an opinion. Thats teaching gold. When kids debate or see something they didn't see before. You get these classes where your teaching the vocab of global warming, religion or politics and somebody says something that makes the whole class think. You push them along to find answers or look at things in a differrent light. Your just a gentle nudge. Playing the devils advocate has got to be one of the best teaching tools. You sit back and watch words fly across a class room and kids getting passionette about something they believe is true. I fucking love teahcing when that happens...maybe because it doesn't feel like teaching.



All in all I'm still learning how to do this. It's good days and bad. Days when you'll find me at the bar after work and days when I'm stoked, ready for the next day.

It's my Birthday in a few days. Time to get a bit gnarley.

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Comments

[Linda MacKinnon]

Teaching sounds like quite challenge
Josh, I hope you go back in and read your comments. I wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday............we are missing you, all of us.Hopefully you will be able to skype at Christmas. But glad to see you are still hanging in there. LOL Linda