Teaching English is something I never thought I knew how to do. And today it definitely felt like I had no clue what I was trying to accomplish.
Tuesdays are the days in which I lead the ESL class for the group of eager Congolese students who are all older than me. Christine Lindell-Detweiler teaches the Thursday class and although she hasn't had any prior ESL experience, she is awesome at it. It's not fair. I just graduated with an English degree (basically) so the English language and I should be tight. Nope.
Today presented itself with several challenges. The first arrived with the first students. As Connie and I were waiting for everyone to arrive, two boys walked into the room asking if we knew how to speak French. After apologizing (again) for not knowing any other language than English, we asked them if they were here for the English class. Yes, they were. There is nothing wrong with new students, but the challenge came from the fact that their English was far behind the rest of my students (that and I think the boys are really intimidated).
The second challenge came when I was supposed to teach vocabulary used when you go shopping. How hard can that be, right? Well, usually we follow a book but today we were just winging it. It was also problematic since I am not from South Africa. I have no idea what the terms are for everything. Yikes. I learn things today in class, which is good, but I hope that everyone else did. I am pretty sure that the little boys did not.
It felt as if class was a little chaotic.
Oh man, why am I not cool enough to be a teacher?
(side note: my title of this blog as nothing to do with anything really – minus the fact that Grammar Rock is pretty much amazing).
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