Academically speaking....

These days I’m finally situating myself into some sort of teaching groove. My students are more used to my presence, but the biggest change has come from better assessing their capabilities.

I occasionally (rarely) have a class where I feel like the children are both learning and having fun, and it’s pretty rejuvenating. Everyone in our office agrees that the grade 4 students represent the idyllic combination of cute, respectful and eager. God knows what the magic formula is, but somehow they’re always enthusiastic about participating, and both cherish my presence respect my authority. This is the golden combination for any teacher, and I know better than to attribute this solely to my teaching tactics; some classes are just good apples (or as psychologist Dr. Lombardo put it, “in a good barrel, which produces good apples”). They have their rowdy side, but unlike most of my students, their vigor can be channeled into a productive activity.

I oscillate between finding my difficult classes humorous and downright maddening, but I’ve at least gained a little perspective. I learned that the students with ADD and other multifarious learning issues are often lumped into one class, and I’ve concluded this segregation is most pronounced in grade 6. My Prathom 6/3 class (lovingly coined the “crack babies” in our office) are always, always crawling up the walls. When I walk in the kids are out of their seats, throwing balls, laughing and screaming, and completely impervious to punishment or scorn. The best thing I can do is play their game, joke around with them, play the instruments they take out, arm wrestle with the boys, and then attempt to slip an easy worksheet on their desks and challenge them to finish it. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes they get into it. As long as I’m realistic about my expectations with classes like these, I’m a lot happier about the outcome.

My best relationships in grade 6 are the rowdy boys, since they let me hassle them in response to being awful students, and the grade 6 girls who swim afterschool. I began running into a handful of girls at the pool a couple times a week, when my lap swimming overlapped with their swim class. Upon my arrival they always yell “teeechaaa swim!” and we start splashing each other, race each other, and try to communicate. It’s the only time I’ve seen students from that grade try to speak English so earnestly. One student called me a “whale” (then ran away before I could splash in protest) but the rest all call me mermaid. Sometimes the girls don’t have swim practice but they still come to the pool to watch me swim—diligent fans.

Their affection does not translate as much in the classroom, especially when I force them to do Reader Club. When it comes to reading, creating in-class worksheets has been the only way to get children through the chapters. They will not read at home or in class, and when I read out loud the students devolve into chatter. Worksheet copying is an issue (you know this when you get 15 worksheets with the same wrong answers, and the same exact misspellings), but I’ve been very consistent about grabbing the worksheet a student is copying from under their nose. They’re starting to get the picture, and are at least devising craftier ways to cheat. I’m hoping that copying will become more of a hassle than actually doing the work, and this will lower their motivation to do so. Many of them are capable, I just need to master the art of subtle coercion.

Another recent development is my job at the YWCA, in a building conveniently located right next to my apartment. Since December, I’ve been giving private English lessons to a guy named Lim for three hours at a time. Honestly, the lessons are pretty draining. All I want to do after the final school bell rings is lay down, so three hours a student’s full-attention pushes the boundaries of my liveliness. However, my lessons with Lim offer the type of experience I actually want in ESL teaching. Lim hangs on every word I say, and pretty much brings new meaning to the word “motivation.” He independently writes up lengthy recaps of every English lesson we have, and asks me to assign him homework. I’m currently focusing on essay-writing, since he’d never heard of an introduction, thesis, or conclusion, and he’ll definitely need them if he’s planning on applying for graduate school in the states. He asks a lot about the UC system, and answering his questions about California is kind of a pleasant indulgence for me.

Me and Lim (I squatted and he stood on his tippie toes to get this close in height):