3 Weeks in: Teaching Difficulties and Supplies

gamarjoba! rogor khar? (გამარჯობა! როგორ ხარ?)

Hello! How are you?  I’m trying to include a little more Georgian as I continue my blog posts since I’m learning a little more every day and I think it’s pretty cool to share with you all back home!  In other news though, I’ve completed my third week of teaching at my school in Apeni!  This week however was a little different since I only went to class on Tuesday and Thursday since Georgia had a very important Parliamentary election on Monday which called for a day off school for everyone. 

Now that I have a few weeks of school under my belt and everything isn’t quite a culture shock as it was at first, I’ve come to a very stark realization about this teaching experience that will undoubtedly affect how I carry out my future career as a teacher:

Teaching is hard.

Actually, it’s really hard and to be honest, this is said having come to the conclusion that I don’t do a whole lot while I’m in the school to begin with.  There are many things that have led me to this conclusion, some of which I already knew from previous experience and others which have become illuminating through this particular situation in Georgia:

Planning each lesson ahead of time takes some thought and effort, and is completely necessary: First of all, you don’t want to look unprepared and let the kids think this is a free-for-all and secondly you want to think about how to present the information successfully so that kids can actually learn.  My co-teachers and I are still working on this planning concept and I want to eventually do some of my own creative activities with the kids that aren't just exercises in the textbook.

Some kids just don’t want to learn English: Even the allure of bringing in an American girl to the classroom doesn't sway some kids to learn English so what do you do with them sitting there in the back of the classroom?  Forget about them?  I personally can’t do this, so I’m still struggling with what to do about it whether it’s going to be taking them aside individually to teach them or something else.

English is a hard language to learn to begin with: Not only are some of the grammar rules annoying and include a bunch of exceptions that you just have to remember.  Sometimes even I can't remember the name of the present progressive -ing ending for verbs (ex: I am reading.).  Another thing that compounds the difficulties associated with English is that for the most part, the only time these kids speak in English is in English class. What I've learned over the years is that in order to become better speakers (in any language) you actually need to use it more than just the forty-five minute class periods 2-3 times a week. There are a few kids who study and use it outside of the school walls, but the number is still pretty small.

Georgian language and English really just don’t mix: There are a lot of differences between Georgian and English so explanation of English concepts takes a bit of time, several examples and a lot of repetition.  And this all has to take place in Georgian for the majority of the kids to understand, hence, time spent talking in English during class is cut short.  One big example is that Georgian doesn't use any capital letters (everything is just written at the same height) so there has to be reminders to capitalize certain words a lot. 

Lack of resources and unexpected hindrances=improvisation: Even something as simple as bringing different color chalk with me has been a life saver.  But, even some of the resources already available to me have needed to be improvised.  The textbooks we use come with CDs for listening activities but when the electricity isn't working at the school how are kids supposed to complete the activities?  Most of the time, I just read the dialogue aloud for the students but no amount of planning ahead can account for things like a loss of electricity for a few hours.

Aside from all of the difficulties that make teaching here frustrating at times there are great things happening every day in my classes.  For example, in the first grade when we offer a prize of a sticker for talking in English all the kids suddenly start talking in great English and look super cute while doing it too!  And when some of the older grades are able to talk about their Georgian lives in English (They have two sisters, Their birthday is on October 13^th etc.), I get to learn a little more about each of them in return.  And, I’ve been making due with the resources I’ve brought with me and the textbooks we use with the kids.  I’ve included some pictures below so you all can see what I’m using to teach with!  While they might not be overly interesting to some of you, hopefully this will help future volunteers who read this blog think of resources and teaching supplies they might bring along with them as well. 

One of the textbooks/workbooks the kids use.  Currently my 5th and 6th grade classes are using this book.  There are six levels for grades 1-6 and ideally each grade is supposed to advance one level each year.  The textbooks change once students get to 7th grade and above.

One thing I would change about these books is how they teach grammar.  A lot of the grammar explanation is left to the teacher to explain and the kids learn how to apply it in the exercises.  This page shows how to talk about hobbies and likes/dislikes.

This page covers clothes and colors.  Also these books teach British English so I've been calling pants "trousers" and tennis shoes "trainers" all week.

This is way later on in the book, but this is just one example of the dialogues that  we have the kids listen to on CD if the electricity isn't out.

A page from the workbook the kids use for in-class exercises and homework.  

Some of the supplies I brought with me.  I haven't used the Bingo cards yet but hopefully it'll be as fun as this little girl makes it look

Flashcards! Thank you Target for the amazing $1 deal before I left!

I'm trying out this new thing I like to call "mini posters" with my host brother to explain English concepts whenever we have our lessons together.  I think they are easier to comprehend than some of the instruction in his textbook (which is different than the one shown above).

Mini poster talking about time

I really think I made a breakthrough with this one.  Georgian only has one pronoun for He/She/It so I think this helped to clear up any confusion my brother has been having with it.

And you get to see how my Georgian writing is coming along!

With all this stuff happening everyday it's hard to believe that I'm almost half way done with this experience!  Definitely more tales to come as teaching and the Georgian experience continues!  Onward to Week 4!

didi madloba (დიდი მადლობა) for reading! (Many thanks for reading!)

gaumarjos! (გაუმარჯოს!) (cheers!)

Kelsey