English Teaching and Me

This post is more or less for the cathartic effect I'm hoping expressing my feelings will have, as well as to memorialize the way I feel for when I'm deciding whether or not I'm going to extend my contract.


I have 2 different English lesson commitments outside of school; one is with the local community center teaching 11 elementary school kids ranging from 4-6th grade, and one is 1-on-1 with a 3 year old in my apartment complex. Let's try to figure out which one I like more.


Dealing with elementary kids in school is tough enough, as they often do NOT want to be learning English (not that I blame them...when I was that age, I didn't really want to do anything but read Encyclopedia Brown and play Mega Man), but when you remove the homeroom teacher who commands respect and fully wields their native language, it ups the difficulty a notch. Factor in the fact that they're from different years and different groups and that also makes it tougher. Then add in the fact that this is AFTER school, meaning it's cutting into their own time and they're often not there of their own volition. Finally, throw in my fairly easy-going and forgiving nature and you have a recipe for the biggest waste of well-intentioned parental funding I can imagine.


This class is a joke, and I am not blameless. The first day, I went in with the mentality that I was going to be teaching motivated, bright students eager to further their studies. Well, the kids are smart but they're certainly not motivated. One of my struggles is that anytime I try to introduce something REALLY new, their eyes glaze over and they develop the "why should I care, I'm never going to need English" attitude. This is the same attitude every kid gets when faced with sin curves, essays exploring the deeper points of Alfred Prufrock, or any other subject to which they are un-inclined. If kids care, they'll learn it. If not, good luck forcing them. And I have to force them.


I made the mistake of not only letting them talk, but letting them bring things to class. I've seen magazines, homework, even the occasional Nintendo DS. I make several attempts to stop them, sometimes even taking the items away, but realize it's more or less futile as I'm sure the kids can tell I am unable to truly discipline them (that's in my contract...no discipline). This means none of the head-smacking, parental conferences, or whatever other recourse there is for a normal teacher. I'm pretty much at my wits end on how to get these kids involved, and it's the single event in the week I look forward to the least. Less than getting up for work on a Monday. I find myself looking at my watch every 5 minutes, speaking English to unattentive kids.


My 3 year old lesson is almost the complete opposite. The little boy is overjoyed to see me, remember pretty much everything I teach him, and his mother is constantly making sure he's paying attention. They ask me for extra copies of the materials I bring, constantly confirm lessons, and pay well in advance. Even though we mostly play the time by ear (30mins to 1 hour depending on his behavior), the hour often flies by and I find myself hanging out longer. It's a lovely family with another toddler, though I have yet to meet the dad. Also the only family I've seen with Christmas lights in the whole city (though it IS early), hanging off an apartment veranda no less.

I understand both attitudes, which is why it's difficult for me to begrudge the children. While I don't look forward to teaching the large group, I understand WHY they're the way they are. English teaching in this country is often sporadic (1 hour a week tops for elementary), poorly organized (no set curriculum), and taught in a manner more to inspire dread than spark interest. My job is to make English fun, but if the kid is upset at the very prospect of learning English, I find it difficult to overcome that. It's not impossible, as I've seen some problematic students start to come around and participate in class, but I certainly am not holding out hope that all these kids will be passing TOEFL tests anytime in the future.

I suppose one of the reasons I like my work is the kids who DO get it. The idea that you can develop a vocabulary in a foreign language by the time you're a 6th grader astounds me, especially if you only have class for an hour a week. I didn't hit my first foreign language until HS, like most people, and though I did well, I believe it was due more to the fact that

a) I was driven to succeed and get into college
b) Spanish had a number of words that were similar in English
c) I didn't have to learn a new set of characters, meaning I could READ the Spanish, even if I didn't know the meaning.

If you've never tried learning a language with different characters than your native toungue, it can be quite daunting. I signed up for Japanese as a soph at USC and that first week of hiragana seemed impossible. Japanese is often considered one of the more difficult languages to learn to write, due in large part to 2 alphabets and something like 10,000 kanji with individual meanings and multiple readings, but I imagine it's just as difficult going from something like Chinese to Russian or Spanish to Arabic. Basically learning to attribute sounds to a picture, then internalizing that picture so that you can read/write it as fluidly as you can your own language is obviously not easy, and I often find myself questioning my choice of study.

It seems like Japanese is an illogical choice. There are very few countries in the world that use the language (I'm counting Brazil and the US since they have decent Japanese populations...otherwise it's just Japan), it's difficult with multiple verb conjugations, varying accents, dialects, levels of politeness, and specialized usage, it's not a country on the upswing like China, and with the amount of time and energy I've put into it, I probably could have become fluent at Spanish and started on French. At the same time, succeeding in a difficult task, applying myself and achieving understanding, forcing myself to adapt to a culture foreign in so many ways (countryside, foreign language, new job, new friends, new foods, blah blah blah) are methods I use to measure my growth as a person. I feel like I'm still taking the safe path a bit, since JET secures housing, work, blah blah for you, but I just wasn't ready to do it myself.

Can I do this for another 8 months? Another 20 months? I suppose we'll know in February, when I turn in my contact extension forms.