Let the Games Begin, or False Start…Go!

School Started on Tuesday, May 14.  Do not be deceived, however, that this meant that classes started, or that I started teaching.  The first day was entirely devoted to cleaning the school.  The students were assigned to different areas, which they swept, mopped, wiped down with damp cloths, etc.  Next came arranging and decorating the classrooms, which took all of the second day.  (Although I’m not sure what went on that day since I haven’t seen much evidence of decoration at least in the rooms in which I teach.) Then students in grade 6 (and possibly in grade 3 and 9 as well) had to take a comprehensive exam on the basis of which they were divided into different classes.  After that I’m not sure what went on, but whatever it was, it took up the rest of the first week.

In the second week, I was expecting just to observe to get a sense of how my co-teachers usually taught and what level the students were at so that I would better be able to plan lessons with my co-teachers.  (During training some of the current volunteers who had come in to lead sessions told us that they didn’t teach for the first 3-4 weeks.)  I expected this because this is what we (my principal, my primary co-teacher and I) had all discussed at the conference at the end of training, what I had also reiterated with both of my co-teachers the one time that we actually met to plan for the coming semester (more about which later), and reiterated a final time the week before classes started.

So when the second week of school arrived, and classes actually started, I was taken slightly off guard when, after the ritualistic exchange of pleasantries with the students (“Good morning, teacher” “Good morning, how are you?” “I’m fine, thank you.  And you?”  “I’m fine, thank you.  Sit down.”) my secondary co-teacher turned to me and asked, “You have activity?”  I looked at her blankly.  Then I looked at the 37 4^th graders staring at us expectantly.  Then I looked back at her.  She was probably thinking, “I thought the American came here to teach English.  What is he waiting for?”  And possibly also, “Are all Americans this slow?”

My ability to think on my feet has a rhythm that I have yet to fathom, but on that day it was at a sufficiently high phase that I was able to come up with something, specifically, having the students compete in groups to come up with as many words as they could in a given category (e.g. food, family, animals, colors, etc.).  This experience also prepared me for the next class, where my  primary co-teacher turned to me and said, “You teach phonics today.”  Fortunately, I had actually been preparing to teach phonics anyway, so the class went fine, but it basically meant that my ideas of initial observation went right out the window.

We had in fact been prepared for these kinds of things during training, but it’s kind of like any purely potential or theoretical misfortune; you never think it will actually happen to you.