The Life of a Student (part three)

Sorry for the delay. My internet has been very bad lately. I've been trying to post this for a week. As a result I am going to post two parts today. This is the second part.

Part Three: The Classroom

The classrooms all these diverse students wander through on a daily basis vary drastically in atmosphere and organization. In one class I visited, the teacher took on an ultra-strict persona. While she was introducing the material she walked around class. If any student misbehaved, a flick of her wrist and the student would stand up in shame, head lowered for dramatic effect. But 20 minutes into her class the students were organized and behaving. The same teacher, 30 minutes into class, set aside the ultra-strict persona to pick up one of more firm encouragement. She stopped making students stand and really focused on correcting any English errors. She, herself, jumped back and forth between English and Chinese. Whenever a single English word had different pronunciation (British vs American), she would rattle off the both of them. I was impressed. More impressive, though, was her student’s receptivity to her teacher material. Regardless of if it was a new grammar form or corrected pronunciation, the students were largely able to take-in, digest, and adapt to the new information. This to me says she was not only teaching in a method that worked for her students but was also presenting material at an appropriate level relative to her students English ability.

Another classroom was set up like a standard US lecture room with a projector up front. The teacher wandered back and forth and occasionally down the isles. The flow and feel of the class was almost identical to any lecture I received back at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; the information was delivered and the students took it down for future studying. Some students listened, some looked at their phones. She didn’t bother herself with demanding attention. Instead, she just focused on her lecture and delivered the important information. Occasionally, she’d venture down a short tangent to scold the students in some societal failure that is their fault. Her face brought form to a conviction that comes from too much experience. Upon finishing her tangent, her face relaxed, fading into the wrinkles that never let conviction leave her guise. All said and down, any student interested in getting a good grade simply had to write down the information and learn/memorize it. I’ve found that these idealistic behavioral rants are just an aspect of this teacher’s personality. 

If my students aren’t standing up in shame for one teacher or hurriedly writing down the words of another teacher, they very well might be sitting in my own classroom. At 8 am the bell rings and we share a mutual “good morning.” I move any students in the back rows to the empty front rows. The atmosphere in my classroom remains light hearted and invigorating. “Teacher, when I go to other classes I always sleep but none of us sleep in your class. You’re so funny.” One student sent me this in a message. What worries me, are they awake and passive or are they awake and actively learning?

In an attempt to keep my students active I create activities for every class that demand the students use the new material that was presented and practiced in the first half of class in order to complete. The students call these games and that is often the attitude they approach them with. My biggest challenge has been directing the energy of an invigorated class into effective English learning. Up to this point I would chalk it as a sometimes-success-often-failure. When I polled my students for feedback, one of the most frequent suggestions was that I needed to control my class more. Despite this suggestion, though, seeing my students getting more and more excited to work with English throughout the semester is markedly my biggest success. I can’t claim to have taught them a lot over a mere 14 classes. What I do claim is to have ignited or fanned a flame that is now burning through English books and English tv shows and English material. I only hope that these students find goals like thick logs that can sufficiently fuel their new-found fire.