My Day Today

[Xarex 1]

So I volunteer as a teacher's aid - ESL. I'm in Israel for a year. I know some Hebrew -- enough to command, enough to demand, but not enough to talk about everything. The teacher I work with had a meeting today, and left me alone for 2 hours -- 1 hour with 20 kids and the other with another 20 kids. They were second graders.None of them spoke any English at all. She left me with the assignment they had to do and that was that.Well, to make a long story short.. and although they just weren't grasping the concept of me saying that "I don't understand what you are saying to me, I'm sorry." -- I managed to get through those 2 hours.In the beginning, I really cared. I wanted them to work at it. The good students, of course, did their work. The slackers.. just didn't want to do anything but have a free period. Expected of kids.. I was probably the same way. But by the middle of the class, I had the attitude of, "I just don't care.. do whatever you will.. just leave me alone."Anyone else been in a similar experience of being unable to communicate with a class full of children? It wasn't so much that I couldn't communicate with them -- it was more of the fact that they knew they could take advantage of saying they don't understand me because they know I'm an English teacher.

[mamer 0]

That's a situation that I woudn't like to be in, specially with kids but I could imagine what might happen.I might have started with teaching them how to say simple things like "Hello, my name is ...., what's your name.Learning from your experience I wouldn't show that I don't understand what they say, I would simply ban the use of native language in class and insist on getting responces in English.I might take a lot of time demonstrating, modeling and drilling and using all the pair group work tricks to get them say what I taught.I would survive for one hour doing that but 2 hours is a killer.

[sheepdog 10]

Eeek, that sounds like a complete disaster. Heck I wouldn't want to be in a room full of second graders if we all spoke the same language as far as that goes. There are a few jobs on this planet that I wouldn't want, no matter what the pay, and being a school teacher is one of them. Worse yet, being a school bus driver. I can't imagine the amount of concentration you would need to keep the bus on the road and out of the ditches and not running traffic lights and stop sign with all the comotion going on in the back with all the brats back there, especially the night trip home when they are full of energy from sitting still in school all day and are looking forward to getting home and goofing off with friends and stuff after school.