First week over. And can I first say how much I LOVE to work with international students!! I knew everyone's names after the first day, maybe because there are so few students but also because they have such distinctive names! I have kids from Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Costa Rica, mostly 19-20-old kids, but they seem so much more mature than my students from last semester! Another big difference is their motivation. These kids know that they need to learn how to write better, even if they don't like it, unlike American students who didn't see the point in learning because they thought they already knew it all. My international students also know the price of their learning, the sacrifice they have made, the homesickness they must feel, and this gives yet another dimension to their motivation to finish quickly, to make their families proud, to not waste their money, to learn as much as they can.
So, Monday we just talked about the course, who we all were, and that's about it. Tuesday was a living hell! I tried to show them how to use our wonderful laptops and to log them into blogger. It was really difficult, since some students didn't know their passwords, some who used their hotmail account had problems with logging into blogger, some didn't know how to create a new account, and finally some didn't know anything! At the end, I managed to get almost everyone in there, but by the time they all had understood what they were supposed to do, turned off their computers, and taken them back to the cabinet, we had already stolen 7 minutes of classtime to the teacher right after me! Ooops! I felt terrible! I have no problem finishing class on time, but I have never been good at actually leaving the classroom quickly after class is over. Wednesday, I gave them their diagnostic test, and made the mistake of telling them that it was not really a test... so many didn't really care about what they wrote. Most seem to write quite well from what I can see though, and I even have one person who said his native language is English...??? But he had to take the TOEFL...??? He's from India, and from what I've heard, if you don't speak "proper English" you are not considered a native speaker, so maybe that's what he thinks... of he just wanted to be in a more "sheltered" environment? ... I also gave them the choice to either hand write their text or type it, and again, getting the computers, starting them, learning how to get the directions from my website and open a new file, and then type the paper and send it as an attachment took us forever! This technology is wonderful and I feel very lucky not to have to change classrooms every day to go to a computer lab, but the fact that the computers are not already on the desk and turned on creates a huge waste of time and is a serious problem. I don't know how we'll solve it, but I will start by not using computers too often! Thursday, I got a little upset at my students for the first time because I had given them some reading to do and most seemed to not have done it, or not to have learned what was in it. I told them that I would give them one more chance to read and learn and that if they blew it, I'd start giving them quizzes on the reading! I guess they are just not yet used to my teaching style and my expectations. I could have been more explicit when I gave them the directions for the homework, but I also want them to start being more independant and to take their learning as adults and not as children who must be told what to do step by step. I said that I had been nice so far but that I could become mean if I had too. They probably don't know the direction our class is taking. I mean, I have not explained the big picture, the general goals, my expectations, and the way I would grade (the blog entries for example) their assignments. I need to do that next week!
Well, I gave them Friday off since they are supposed to be in class only 4 days a week and I didn't want to start with conferences the first week. We spent enough time talking and explaining and trying things. This gives them a long weekend since Monday is Labor Day. I am excited to work with these kids, overall, and I think things will go well. They are interesting and very respectful and even if they still seem a bit scared and lost, I believe we'll have a great semester together! And if it doesn't come naturally, I'll work hard to change things and make them interesting and fun for all!
Almost time to start school. There's much to do these days: finish the webpages, write lesson plans for a few weeks to come, check how many students are in my new sections and what their names look like, create survival materials for the first few weeks... I keep looking at the names of the students who are already registered in my sections and try to guess where they are from, what they will do, what they are like... I am very excited to teach international students again. It was a great experience teaching Americans, but they had this homogeneity that bothered me, they lacked the amazing asset that international students do bring with them: variety! I did learn much from Americans though, especially about what freshman life is, and what it is to be a young person in today's world. This experience also showed me that I am no longer of the same generation as my students, and that is a bit scary. Fortunately (or not) the students themselves are not aware of this!
So now, back to international students for a year. Some people say that they are much more demanding than Americans, and that they often complain about their nonnative English-speaking TAs, but I won't let that bother me, because I know what I know and what I can teach them. I am not sure yet about the level of complexity I will require in their writing since about half of the students are freshmen, but the other half has been here for a while already, and they would know more and require more too. I guess I will have to adjust and adapt my teaching according to how the first week goes. But still, I will always set high standards for all of them and will not accept any excuse for bad work.
It will be harder this year not to have a mentor like I did last year. Chris helped us keep track of the important assignments and events, she gave us so many ideas, helped us when we were lost or discouraged, and was always one step ahead of us. Now, it's basically me, and my experiences. Tony and our 106i group will work together, yes, but I guess it is time for me to go back to the independant state I was when I was teaching at the ELC: no one to tell me what to teach, where, when, how, and why. I have done it before, I hope I can do it again, and well.
