I started teaching adults recently (just once a week, unfortunately, I'd love to teach them more). It's a stage for primary teachers, who will obviously have to teach English.. We were told to just practice speaking with them, which is what all the assistants started out doing. But because half of the group had much higher English skills (most of them have lived abroad), about half of the students felt left in the dust. So me and the other assistant who works on Tuesdays split them into two groups, and I took the beginner group. We started with basics, going over the vocabulary and pronunciation of words that they would be using with their students. We'd write down a list of words and 1 or 2 constructions to go along with it. I also taught them a few songs like ABC and Old McDonald. (Funniest comment of the day: "I bet in the other group they're discussing super-technical stuff like Parliament. And we're doing animal noises.")
The students walked in the door frustrated and unmotivated, but by the end of the class everyone was happy. They told me multiple times how much they enjoyed their lesson. One lady told me "yesterday, my morale was in my shoes." (I'm guessing that's some kind of French expression.) "I didn't even want to come to class today, because yesterday I went home almost crying because I sucked so bad. But today was great." All the other students agreed. I was happy for the rest of the day that day.
This last time, they told me again that my lessons were great, and that they really liked coming to class on Tuesdays because what I teach them is so useful. Aw thanks guys! Because they had buttered me up so nicely, when my lesson ended five minutes early and they begged me to teach them some inappropriate words in English, I complied. Some of them took notes. Had a bit of an embarassing moment when another student walked in, but I managed to stand in front of the board. He didn't see the vocab, but I think he wondered why all my students were laughing.
I've had a few cute moments with the children, as well. When I get to school, the kids stampede over to proudly yell "HELLO!" in English, or faire la bise. One of my schools has a gated courtyard, and the kids all hang on the gate yelling "HELLO MEGAN" over and over until one of the secretaries comes over to open it. "Why do you always do this?! Get off the gate!" she asked in frustration the other day, having to dislodge about 8 tiny kids to be able to swing the gate open. "Because Megan's here!" was the universal response. One of my sweet CE1 students then grinned up at me and said, "we really like Megan". Wow. If I gave grades, she'd be set for the year.
Come to think of it, that's the same cute kid who really wanted to learn something to say when she couldn't remember the answer, so I taught her "I forgot", which she and the girl who sits next to her will now say, super-dramatically (complete with a back-of-the-hand-on-the-forehead hand gesture) whenever they don't know the answer. Yes, they're completely hamming it up, but it's cute and they're using English in context. Moments like these carry me through when I'm teaching my class of terrors.
For some reason, the kids are all absolutely convinced I know Barack Obama. I'm almost two months into this gig and they still ask me about it. I have no idea why. (Oh yeah, we're besties. We kick it at the White House every weekend and watch football. And eat hamburgers.) I sometimes wonder if they're confusing Washington DC with Washington state, which is actually a pretty advanced mistake considering some of them think I live in London, and the littlest ones don't really get the concept of me being foreign at all. The CP students will often make comments like, "your English is REALLY GOOD!" or "how did you learn English?" or "why do you speak French funny?" When I tell them English is my first language, and I learned it they way they learned French, I get blank stares in response. (QUOI????) One of the CP teachers always speaks English with me, and as we were talking one day a little boy in the front row got really excited. "Hey, hey everyone! They're speaking ENGLISH!!!"
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