Jenny's Guide to Teaching

or 'What to Do When a Kindergartner Hugs You in the Middle of Class and Won't Let Go'

I have finished (and survived) my first week of teaching! I have a pretty varied group of classes - three groups of 3rd graders at various levels of English comprehension, two groups of 6 year olds and one group of 5 year olds who know almost no English, and two classes of advanced adults. Next week I will also begin teaching at a public elementary school here in the morning, and I may also have an opportunity to do some 1:1 tutoring, so overall, they are keeping me plenty busy! This first week was a series of ups and downs as I've been trying to plan lessons for my new classes. It's been difficult to judge what level the students will be at before meeting them and to prepare accordingly.

For my very first class, a group of 3rd graders, I had taken hours to carefully plan every detail of the lesson, only to find that they understood surprisingly less than I had been lead to believe, or so I gathered from their blank stares as I tried to speak to them in English. I did what I could to simplify the lesson on the spot, but by the end of it, I was flustered and convinced I had just confused the kids more. It wasn't until one of my students, a little blonde girl, came up to me as she was leaving, gave me a hug, and said, "That was great, thank you Mister Jenny!" that I felt a little better.

The five and six-year-olds are the cutest little peanuts you have ever seen, but keeping them amused for 90 minutes at a time, in another language, is particularly challenging. My strategy has mostly been to be about ten times more animated and expressive in front of them than I am normally (which requires a lot of coffee). By only using a minimal amount of words ('stand up,' 'look,' 'what's this?' etc.) I've found that they can understand me and start to pick up some new vocabulary in English. I've already gathered a few fans, which is encouraging, but also a little troublesome when a little kid latches onto you while you're trying to teach and refuses to let go!

The school itself is very nice, and has a homey feel to it. It's relatively small, so all the teachers know each other and both the director and the owner of the school are always around to talk to and help with any problems. My third day of teaching, the owner found me in the teacher's lounge and brought me downstairs to the cafe where she helped me to order lunch (delicious homemade pierogis)! "You have to eat well when you are teaching so many kids!" she said. So now I apparently get a homemade, two-course meal for lunch every day. Works for me considering my own cooking skills have generally never risen above the instant mac and cheese and microwavable Lean Cuisine level.

Next week I start teaching more classes in the public school, so we'll see how that goes!

The school

I get to use a fancy Smartboard!

The teacher's lounge