Summer school...

This week was the first week of the TEFL (Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) trainee practicum… summer school. We spilt up into pairs and are teaching English to groups of Azeri kids. Each of us teaches half of the lesson, for three weeks. It is designed to give us some or more - depending on the trainee - teaching experience, and to give us a glimpse of an Azeri classroom.

My group of kids ranges in age from 11 to 13. These kids all had to apply to be in summer school. This, already, puts us in an ideal school situation – all of these kids want to be here and want to learn English. Like school back home, that will not be the case in the real classroom. That’s ok by me, though. I am definitely fine with easing into the system.

The first day was rocky – as all first days are. Whitney (my teaching partner) and I were somewhat surprised to discover that the students knew a lot more English than we expected. Suddenly, teaching the “hello, my name is…” seemed a bit elementary. Stuff we had planned to take 10 minutes took 5, so by the end of the first half, we were almost all the way through our entire lesson. Luckily, we were able to come up with a bunch of stuff to add so the kids stayed interested and involved.

Since that day, we have understood a bit better how our time will flow and the level of our kids. And we’ve found ways to make the stuff that some of them already know interesting for all of them. By the end of the week, we were able to have really fun, interesting lessons that kept the kids involved – and the two of us not floundering and wondering what to do next!

One of the activities we did was to give the kids English names. We wrote a bunch of names down on pieces of paper and the kids chose their names at random. We tried to get simple, somewhat classic names. We ended up using the names of most of my aunts and uncles. And bizarrely, the kids seem to embody the personalities of those aunts and uncles. Seeing my sweet Aunt Mary and my Uncle Tom’s strong personality in little Azeri children is more than a little surreal.

I am already starting to learn a bit about Azeri classrooms – and how I can positively affect them. I was told that most teachers here teach to the “good” kids. There are one or two kids who are eager and interested – their hands shooting up before the question is asked, shouting “muellim, muellim (teacher, teacher).” Apparently, most teachers focus on these kids and the others get somewhat forgotten. In my summer school classroom, I definitely have a couple of those kids. What has been really fun is to help the other kids get involved. The first day, the three “muellim” kids were the only ones to raise their hands. By the end of the week, all of the kids were raising their hands and trying to get called on. My absolute proudest moment of this week was seeing little Kate – the shyest, quietest girl in the class – jump up and down with her hand in the air to guess when we played Eye Spy.

I am so glad to be finally starting what I’m supposed to be doing while I am here. This week went a lot faster than the previous weeks have gone, and I am feeling really proud and excited about the work I am doing. I can’t wait for next week.