I’m shocked at how many times I’ve said “Good morning” to students coming into class where I’m subbing, and been ignored.
Completely ignored.
What happened to politeness? What happened to basic social skills?
education and teaching
First Impressions II
Back straight, chest out, shoulders square, hands folded behind the back. Greetings, warm but firm, as everyone comes in.
The Speech, highlights:
I will treat you as an adult, which means that I will respect you and speak respectfully to you. When I speak to you, I will not simply bark an order, but I will speak politely. I use “please” and “thank you.” Most importantly, it means when you speak to me, I give you my full attention. I expect the same. Is that clear? Does everyone understand?
A quick survey shows that some indeed are not listening. Time for the sergeant act.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I asked you a question, and when I ask you a question, you will answer it. When I speak to you, you will listen.”
It’s the best drill sergeant voice I can muster, and I deliver the words in a loud and firm voice.
Silence.
“Do you understand?”
Heads nod, a few “Yes sirs.” A hand up. “Were you in the military, sir?”
Sometimes it’s amazing how well I can act the role.
Français sans filet
Je ne parle pas bien français. Je me souviens très peu de ce que j’ai appris à l’université. En fait, j’ai écrit cela en anglais et je l’ai traduit à Babel Fish. Cela explique la bêtise de ce texte.
I don’t speak French well. I remember very little of what I learned in college. In fact, I wrote that in English and I translated it at Babel Fish. That explains the silliness of this text.
Not speaking French didn’t stop me from being a French teacher for the day today. Fortunately, I had two bocks of first-year French and only one block of third-year. Even more fortunately, the planning period fell between the third year and first year blocks, so I had plenty of time to do a bit of cramming.
Oh, for a real Babel Fish, though. Think of the problems that might solve — instant intelligibility. Think of all the translators and comparative literature scholars out of work.
Teaching something while not being entirely sure that you’re teaching it correctly is a little like the Engine that Could — I think this is right, I think this is right.
A few tips for those embarking on teaching a foreign language you barely remember:
- When in doubt about translation, be honest: “I don’t know.”
- When in doubt about grammar, be honest: “I don’t know.”
- When in doubt about spelling, be honest: “I don’t know.”
- When in doubt about pronunciation, mumble.
And thank the maker for an assembly that cuts half an hour off your last lesson.
ESubL
Being bilingual can really be a troublesome affair when trying to teach English – if your student’s L1 is different than your L2.
Today, while subbing, I worked with a student of Latin origins who spoke very limited English. I speak even more limited Spanish, though I’ve decided I must learn that language. At any rate, I found that while working with her it was a constant and very conscious struggle not to lapse into Polish. “She doesn’t understand what you’re saying,” a voice was screaming in my head, “So use another language.”
Unfortunately, Polish was not terribly helpful.
The world of ESL is frightful in some ways. The responsibility is enormous.
As an EFL teacher, I was teaching a foreign language, which means it’s not going to be used that often. It’s not often going to be the basis of all other learning. And teaching English as a foreign language also affects the skills stressed. My primary goal for my students was verbal communication. Writing is important, but not nearly as important as speaking.
I confess, then, that I probably didn’t spend enough time with my students working on writing, until the national testing standards changed and forced my hand.
ESL is an entirely different animal. The goal is simple: get students’ English up to a level where they use it as their primary language for instruction. Think about it: it’s re-wiring a house, re-pouring a foundation. No, wrong analogy. It’s adding a second set of wires to a house, putting a foundation within a foundation.
And what do students do in the meantime? If they have limited English, how do they learn science? The idea solution is bilingual education, with L1 gradually being phased out. But the ideal is often just that.
In Your Face
What do you say to a student when he says to you aggressively, “You don’t have to get up in my face like that!”? How do you respond when in fact all you were doing was trying to be “reasonable” and explain why you were calling him down in the first place, and doing it by squatting down to be at eye-level with him, talking to him like a man? Is this blatant disrespect, or something else?
I’m not even sure I know what it means to be “in someone’s face about something.” I’m assuming that it means the chest to chest, strutting peacock type of testosterone-laden behavior I saw myself as a student many times. Of course I wasn’t doing that when students said those lovely words to me, so what’s going on?
An invasion of someone’s personal space is the only explanation I can come up with. In trying to be respectful — and I do believe teachers should be as respectful to their students as they expect their students to be to them — it seems I crossed an unknown, unseen boundary and caused offense. Or perhaps he was just testing me, seeing what he could get by with?
Support from Your Principal
Erin O'Connor at Critical Mass has a fascinating and yet disturbing post about a way of dealing with student profanity...by allowing it.
An English high school has decided to cope with the problem of student profanity by tolerating it. Beginning this fall, students will be allowed to curse at their teachers, just so long as they don't say "f -- k" more than five times during a lesson. Part of the new policy involves keeping a running tally on the blackboard of how many times the word "f -- k" has been uttered during a given lesson--a practice that promises to distract students.
I for one would feel this as a complete abandonment on the part of the principal of any acknowledgment even of my authority as teacher.
Are you our sub?
A first-time experience and I keep quiet -- that can’t have happened too very often. But the details about the events of yesterday, fascinating though they were, will remain distanced from any comments I might make here about it. The experience: I was a sub. First time.
In an effort to gain a face in the local school system, I am trying substitute teaching, and I got my first call yesterday morning.
“Substitute teaching.” That in itself seems to be an oxymoron. Teaching is a profession requiring such intimate knowledge -- not the least of which, the kids’ names -- that "substitute teacher" has all the ring of “substitute shrink.”
“Yes, I know you’d rather be talking to Dr. White, but he’s away on urgent business and his office asked me to come down and fill in for him. Now then, what seems to be the problem?”
It just doesn’t seem like it would work.
Yet at an orientation session for new substitute teachers last week, I and other new subs learned that “subbing isn’t the glorified babysitting it used to be” and that subs are expected to continue on instruction. In other words, be a substitute teacher and not just a substitute authority figure. I'm not sure it was ever anything else, but I do think that there was less expectation of what subs would accomplish in the classroom, say, twenty years ago.
The Day
Seven years of teaching has taught me one invaluable thing about the profession -- take nothing they do personally. Any silly, probing, "let's-see-what- he-does-now" behavior is directed at my role, not my person. That realization will be key to being an effective sub.
I survived. Not only that, but I enjoyed it. It felt good to be in a classroom again. With the beginning of the school year here (and approaching in Poland -- 1 September), it was difficult to keep from feeling a tinge of sadness at the thought of not teaching this year. The call Friday morning helped alleviate that.
I spent the afternoon with a group of seventh graders, the first time I’ve worked with that age group in many years.
Six weeks of my student teaching was in a seventh grade classroom, and those kids, according to my reckoning, have just finished college, so it’s been a while.
Seventh grade -- an interesting age group, for they’re right on that border between “child” and “young adult,” beginning to realize that they’re not kids anymore but not quite sure how to handle that.
Farewell Party
Final Days of School
Survival Mode
And out of the blue yesterday, a tolerable lesson with The Class. What makes them tick? I have no idea. Such a strange group of kids. Monday was living hell; yesterday was survivable, even decent. But still, the same old folks were up to the same old game – gap speaking activity turned into a copy-your-partner’s-worksheet activity. And of course the usual suspects didn’t come to class with anymaterials whatsoever, then use that as an excuse to sit and draw all lesson.
I’ve finally realized with that class that I simply can’t make them learn, and so I concentrate now on the five to seven students (depending on their moods) who want to learn, with the four hardest-working students (and therefore, best behaved) at the front of the room. I talk to them, and glance at the others from time to time, in case someone there gives a crap. Most of them don’t, it seems.
The other day, I all but told them this. I said that I really didn’t care whether they care anymore, and that I’m going to put all my attention on those who in turn pay attention. “Tak jest,” said the best student – a young man who has, I believe, one B (a 4 in the Polish system) this semester.
I worry this might be self-defeating in the long run, and not a very good classroom management method. Still, I’ve got about three weeks of school left, and I’m just in survival mode with them now.