Don't Bloody Piss Your Teacher Off!

I was kinda upset today, but at the same time I knew I might have been a tad sensitive about the whole issue. Maybe I'm taking work way too seriously. Hell, I ALWAYS take work seriously!

I gave my adult students an assignment last week for today's lesson. They have to bring their favourite English song each and then do a presentation on what the song is about, the mood it creates, how they can relate to the song etc...

There were 3 students in my class today. It was a Pre-Intermediate level. There was a Jewish couple and business owners, S and A, whom I really like and a nice young lady, D, who is a marketing executive in a medical company.

S went first and we listened to a love song of her choice. She then talked about how the song was the first to be played at her wedding and that for 10 good years and still counting, it has been the ringing tone used everytime her husband calls her. That's why I like the couple, especially S. It's not true that only the students learn in class, teachers do learn from the students too - that I strongly believe. S and A showed me the beauty of 20 over years of married life. I love the way they look at each other and tease each other and laugh. S, especially just radiates of positivity and love. They taught me alot about life and beauty of love and family. S makes me laugh alot and vice versa. She's no dainty woman, she speaks her mind and carries her full figure with such confidence and a dash of arrogance.

My goodness I'm really getting carried away here lol...Anyways, next came D who unsurprisingly, didn't bring any song. D's always busy with work and yes she has a good career going for her, going to congresses all over the cities non stop. She used S's fancy phone and chose a song from there and played it in class during her presentation. It was my all time favourite, She by Elvis Costello.

Obviously unprepared, she went on to say how the song was all about a woman and how it seemed the singer was really in love with her. She continued saying it was a lovely love song and the woman was very lucky indeed.

During presentations, I always try to get my students to talk more because most would just get 'stuck' or be satisfied to give a short and simple speech. They usually get discouraged coz of their limited knowledge of English but this is something I always push for them to overcome. I always aim to boost their confidence in conversing in English and the only way is to PRACTICE!

I asked D questions like is ıt scary to love somebody so much and to elaborate her opinion on that. She replied yes that one shouldn't go crazy in love. Yup, exactly one sentence. I then asked her if women are usually victims in love compared to the men and whether men are emotionally stronger when it comes to love.

She looked at me exasperated and said, 'I am boring.' I knew she meant 'I am bored'. Smiling, I asked her why and she said it was all too much on love and emotions. I was pissed but one thing I learnt from my humble teaching experience is to never show negative emotions especially to adult students coz some would not think twice to use that against you.

After the last presentation by A, again smiling, I thanked them for their efforts and sharing their opinions with me. Not really letting go of the issue, I told the students that if they don't like to talk about love, they can bring a different type of song to begin with, that there was no restrictions at all for the assignment and that was why I asked them to bring THEIR favourite songs. On that note, I just settled my eyes on D for a couple of seconds and smiled. Oh how deceiving smiles can be!

I know I might take this a little too personally but nothing irritates me more than having students telling me they are bored. IN MY CLASS. Turkish students are outspoken and they are frank. They say what they wanna say, period. I took this personally coz I am rather a perfectionist. I MUST be that sought after teacher, the best one in the school. My lessons are usually filled with laughters, save to say they're not just my own.

Another thing that annoys me was the fact that teachers DO work their asses off and students DON'T realise that! We don't sashay to class, batting our eyelashes and just pick a topic on the spot and just do it! We freaking plan our topic and battle with our inner selves debating whether the topic will engage the type of students that we have. We plan our lesson plans thoroughly and are always thinking of fresh ideas, epecially for ADULT students cos they normally hate repetition unlike children, who need them in order to drill new info in their heads. We constantly do research coz well... we are EXPECTED to have answers, it's like we are the walking Wikipedia.

Thus when we ask you to do a gawd damn assignment, just bloody do it! It doesn't take 1 hour to find your bloody favourite song from your stack of cds or mp3, if it does I don't think that's REALLY your favourite song is it?! So don't freaking tell me you are bored of talking about love and emotions when you played SHE BY ELVİS COSTELLO in my class! Geez that song always nearly brings me to tears what else can I ask about pertaining to it, GLOBAL WARMING?!!

Later on during our break, all of us had 'cay' (Turkish for tea) at the balcony and D said,'Omg, we've attended this course for 6 weeks already!' I looked at her and went like,'And.........?' She continued saying when the other songs were being played earlier she couldn't even pick up the words of the lyrics. -.- I didn't know why but I took it personally again, wasn't that like saying omg, 6 weeks learning English with THIS teacher and I couldn't even pick up some songs' lyrics!

I put down my cay and that was it at the balcony I kinda lectured them, showing I meant business. I didn't even care that S and A are much much older than me, I wanted to have my say and I did. To address D's concern, I told her random songs are the worst way to gauge her capability in English. Most songs are not grammatically accurate and they use a lot of slangs and short forms in order to accomodate the melody and rhythm as well. That was why Jane Austen was never a songwriter nor Eminem, an author. I told them all if they want to gauge their comprehension, they should do it through the proper channel - listen to BBC, you can never go wrong.

I asked each and everyone of them if they felt they've improved from the 1st lesson till now and all of them said yes so that was good, I kinda breathed again lol. I didn't stop there though, I went on and on like I was lecturing my child. All eyes were glued on me and for some funny reason, I felt as though they were all getting motivated listening to me! They were nodding passionately in agreement to what I was saying, even D. They all looked serious but inspired. Wow. Amazing. To think I could come up with some 'inspiring' damn speech just because I was pissed off.

It's definitely easy to blame the teachers for your lack of improvement but seriously, we DON'T have magic wands, you can't make you a whiz by or within a period of time! If you can't help yourselves, neither can we. We can only afford to teach but you guys should work hard at it too.

Before I ended the class, I divided the board into 3 sections and told each of them to take a section and handed them each a marker. I gave them vocabulary quiz on what I've covered before. The whole board was covered with little writings. I went through their mistakes, which was quite a significant number and before I wrapped up my lesson, I smiled and told them all those countless words on the board didn't even add up to 1/5 of the vocab I've taught them so far, for the past 6 weeks so get moving and revise EVERY SINGLE thing covered coz there'll be a surprise test or quız at next lesson. Now are you gonna piss the teacher again?? *roll eyes*




xo;
V

Just Another Day

I'm done with my lesson plans and now waiting for my nails to dry. I've class soon and can't bear to teach with chipped nails, I don't know for some reason I find students usually tend to scrutinise you from head to toe! The last time I had few streaks of baby pink hair, my female students spotted it right away though I had carefully stuffed it in the inner bits of my pony tail.

My first lesson today will be with this 13 year old kid, M. I like him, he's smart and he really wants to learn and that's what teachers love most. Great attıtude! Doesn't matter ıf ya slow but if you have the positive attitude, ya my favourıte student!

I still remembered the first time I spoke to M's mom. Boy, was she hard work! I heard my director telling her yea, we've found a foreign teacher to teach your kid.I was just beside my director, she was talking in Turkish so I just pıcked up the keywords and put pıeces together.

I was told before that M's dad is Irish and his mom is an Englısh teacher. So why does he need Englısh course, I asked my dırector. She told me his parents are divorced. Somehow I knew my natıonalıty would pose as a lıttle barrıer to me gettıng thıs teachıng gıg.

'Sıngapore,' I heard my dırector tellıng M's mom over the phone. Aah well, nothıng new. Everyone's dyıng for Englısh natıve teachers here and truth be told, there's no shortage of ıt. If ya blue eyed and blond, the better your appeal as an ESL teacher.

I knew the mom would wanna speak to me and true enough, the phone was suddenly passed to me.

I trıed to sound all cheery and nice and M's mom kept on askıng where I'm from. Sıngapore, Sıngapore, Sıngapore, I kept on answering. She asked ıf I've lıved in UK and I saıd no. She asked ıf I've lıved ın the States, I saıd no, I've lived in Sıngapore all my lıfe. -.-

There was a pause and I dıdn't mean to be rude when I told her Englısh ıs the offıcıal language ın Sıngapore. She was ımmedıately offended and got a lıttle hysterıcal tellıng of course she knew that, she watches the Dıscovery Channel all the tıme! Err... oh ok. Wow. She went on to say Turkısh people are not ıgnorant and they know that. Touchy aren't we.

Well I wasn't beıng a smart arse honestly. Not MANY people know that fact and certaınly not Turkısh. Hell even some of my Englısh frıends don't know that! I was just ınformıng here to ease her mınd that's all! For some reason I found ıt funny and I laughed. There was a pause. Then she laughed too. Boy, laughter sure ıs ınfectıous...or useful to dısguıse embarrassment.

Later she told the dırector that yea she was comfortable havıng me as her son's teacher. On the fırst lesson wıth M, she was there. She brought all hıs school books and proceeded on tellıng me what I should do, she sımply couldn't stop beıng a teacher. I was polıte to her and told her, no problem I know what to do and to trust me to do my job. Before she got offended and hysterıcal agaın, I put my hand on her arm and smıled tellıng her not to worry that I'd do my best. The warmth of a human hand ıs amazıng and can work wonders to break any form of hostılıty. She let her guard down and smıled, apologısıng to me for beıng too anxıous. (We called ıt 'KIASU' ın Sıngapore)

The lesson went fıne and I found myself extendıng my lesson tıme for M. It dawned to me how hard thıs lady must have worked to sıngle handedly support her chıld, wantıng hım to excel ın lıfe. I started understandıng her more.

Wokay, my naıls are almost drıed now so tıme for me to get ready for work! Cıao!


xo,
V