I've noticed my tendency to blog way more often about my trips than about my day-to-day life as a teacher. That's mostly because trips are way more exciting than teaching, and it's less common for teenagers to laugh at me on trips. (But only slightly less common.)
For the past two weeks, I've been teaching students about the 4th of July. It is news to many of my students that the capital of the United States is not, in fact, London, so I had to start slow. But really, by comparison, how much Malaysian history did I know when I was 12? Did I know Malaysia was a country when I was 12?
The best explanatory brainwave of last week was my sudden inspiration of how to explain the Boston Tea Party to my higher-level students. With a very serious look in my eye, I said, "Imagine your principal went to Genting Highlands [the Vegas of Malaysia, only more family-friendly] and got into a lot of debt. Then, imagine that the school decided that to pay off the principal's debt, they were going to charge you double on your Milo ice [basically, iced ovaltine] in the school canteen."
Students: "Not fair, teacher!"
Pretend-teacher Liz: "Not fair indeed, students, not fair indeed."
I don't have a lot of explanatory brainwaves, to be frank. It's really, really, really hard to teach students whose English comprehension is low. Lately I've been learning that less is more. Sometimes a really simple lesson works better than any of my more involved lesson plans, especially with the younger students whose English proficiency is lower. My most successful recent lesson with them involved having them do dialogues as if they were customers and waiters in a restaurant. The kids seemed to enjoy playing the role of an impatient waiter, a rude customer, a clumsy customer, a very hungry customer, etc. when I assigned them, and they hammed it up in their performances.
One boy with excellent English, who gave a highly memorable performance as a sort of tough-guy, gangsterish waiter, came to me the next week before class. "Miss Liz, what will we do in class today?" When I told him that I would be showing a presentation of 4th of July pictures from around the United States, he seemed very relieved. When I asked why he wanted to know, he said, "I'm nervous, teacher. I'm afraid we do drama again." Great, just what I like to hear.
Speaking of drama, my drama club put on a really great performance at Teacher's Day! After weeks of battling to get students to attend practice consistently and swapping parts at the last minute and asking students to edit my script on "A Day in the Life of a Teacher," the big day arrived. The drama ended with a very tame performance of the "Harlem Shake," which my students were really excited about including. Of course, as is the perennial fate of all low-budget school dramas, the inadequate PA system took its toll. All the teachers sitting in the back of our large, open air hall were unable to hear a word of the drama, according to my mentor. The students in the audience seemed to really enjoy it, though, and the students in drama club were over the moon about how well they had done. The students' happiness, even if the teachers were unimpressed, made me feel it had been a success. I've decided that this must be positive sign that I am slowly getting less dependent on the approval of authority figures.We had the very first performance slot at Teacher's Day, and one student in the drama told me afterwards, "Everyone was laughing so much! It was like a warm-up for happiness." Yessss. "A warm-up for happiness" is such a great phrase and concept, don't you think?
Teacher's Day in and of itself was very amusing. I didn't really understand what a big day it is here until I was groggily stepping out of my car at 7:30 am to be greeted by two students chirping, "Happy Teacher's Day! Are we the first ones to say it?!" I joined all the teachers, who had been asked to dress in purple for the occasion, for an opening parade. We marched through a kind of triumphal archway behind a group of 10-15 boys beating drums. Of course, bunga manga was involved. I tried not to laugh. Then, there were the inevitable speeches, the principal ceremonially unfurled two special banners, we were presented with flowers, and each of us received a gift from the students' association. The rest of the day continued with a potluck sponsored by a parent, more food that students prepared for us, gifts from students, a silly sports competition between teachers, student performances in honor of the teachers, and so, so, so much bad karaoke sung by enthusiastic teachers. Unfortunately, I have mostly video instead of pictures, which takes too long to upload here.
Wow, now that I sit down to write about teaching, I find that I have a lot more to say than I thought! I think I'm going to save some of it, especially the description of the English camp I helped run, for another post. For now I will say that, although it really has its ups and downs, Malaysia is starting to feel ok (perhaps partly because time is moving on and going home is less of a distant dream). I'm realizing that even though I don't want to be a teacher in the long-term, I'm not terrible at it. I feel really energized when a lesson goes well, and I do enjoy talking to my students in the hallways and after class. Today, as I was driving home from an English camp at my friend's school, I looked at the ocean and the tropical flowers and the water buffaloes dangerously close to the roadside and thought about my weekend with the lovely ETAs who shared a celebratory homemade lasagna meal and the cute, enthusiastic primary school students who had enjoyed baking soda and vinegar explosions at Silly Science camp, and decided that this kind of life is not so bad at all.
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