The first week of this new semester is over and as usual, I am surprised, amazed, speechless, confused, and, well, happy. Things are decidedly never going the way I expect them to go. So, here is how my week went: on Monday, I saw a new group of students in front of me and was sad not to see my previous students! The new ones seemed in a good mood and almost happy to be there, though, which was my first surprise. I introduced myself and then talked about the syllabus for a while--textbooks, homework, projects, attendance, etc. I explained that lateness was offending me, that attendance was important, and that this class was going to be tough. In fact, I also spent some time explaining why I thought writing was important and how this class was probably the only one they would have that would teach them how to write good research papers, so I that's why I took my job very seriously and would make them work hard. Then the students introduced themselves to the class--India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, Ecuador, Venezuela, Turkey, Kuwait, and Thailand. One of the students is great friends with Kachru, the famous Indian linguist! Another interesting thing is that several students seemed to know my previous students, which means that they know what to expect, and I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but so far, it has been good. One student wrote me this: "when I first came in here I thought you were a really strict teacher but these people told me that this will be the only class that will keep yu happy during the semster and you are very friendly. so it calmed my nerves." Well... I'm sure glad to hear such things but at the same time, it scares me!
On Tuesday, I explained some more rules and expectations, and also how the conferences worked and how the students were supposed to be available to come to class every day of the week. Then, I had everyone take some M&Ms and then tell as many things about themselves as they had M&Ms. It was fun, because some students had taken a lot of them. It was interesting to notice that these new students were indeed less shy and more talkative than my students last semester, who, until the last few weeks, were rather shy. My new students were laughing, making jokes, and seemed very comfortable. After the second day, I had already shared a lot more personal things about myself than I ever did last semester! Again, is this good? On Tuesday too, I got my student evaluations from last semester back, and can I just say without sounding too proud: never in my whole life have I received such good evaluations! Not even my first semester teaching French at BYU! Not even my first semester teaching 101 at Purdue! These evaluations were the greatest reward for years of worries and hard work. And of course they made me miss my students even more than before. One student had written, at the back of the evaluation form, in huge letters: Lucie Moussu is the best! It almost made me cry! Now I don't want to "dormir sur mes lauriers" as we say in French, so I know I still have to earn my new students' trust and hard work.
Wednesday and Thursday, I had half the students come each day and talked to them about blogger and how I needed their feedback. This time, I really made it very anonymous by making Ongun (from Turkey) my blog administrator and by asking him to "kick me out" of the blog so I wouldn't ever be able to write or see anyone's names. This is a risk I'm taking--for example, I won't ever be able to edit comments if they are going the wrong directions (I never did that last semester but had to do it with one of my 102 sections when they started to insult each others). We'll see how this goes; it's an interesting new experience. I've told them that they could write about whatever they wanted and whenever they wanted, so this too will be a new experience since I am not asking specific questions like last semester. The other thing I showed them how to do on the computer was how to access their grades. I have to say that this first computer experience went much smoother with this class than with last semester's students, but this is probably because the students are not super fresh freshmen anymore and they are used to Purdue's computer systems, and also because the computers are now working well. I had to buy my own license for my grades ($90) and also the right to publish my grades online ($25/year), since I was still using BYU's license and thought it was about time I became a bit more legal. Bad luck, it was just when they introduced the fee for the online grade system.
On Thursday too, we had our first "movie night." Wow! That was quite something! I had also decided to have a little birthday party since it was my b-day on Tuesday, and had invited some ex-students to come as well as some friends and teachers, and I think about 40 people showed up! I was so happy to see Rohit, Danish, Hans, Alan, Daniel, Esteban, and Kester! And a few older students too, from 101 and 102: Darius, David, Tiffany, Ashley, Josh Graves, even Andrew Selig! Very nice surprise! This is where I realized that most of my new students knew ex-students of mine! Good thing or not? All except for two students stayed after the little party for the movie (Life is Beautiful), and counting friends and ex-students, about 22 people stayed for the movie, and I hope many will come next week and during the whole semester. A few 106(i) teachers and even Margie said they were interested in knowing what movie we would watch every week so that they might decide to come and maybe even invite some of their own students.
Since then, I have learned that: there is a cricket match between India and Australia tonight, that Australia is the best in the world in cricket, and Indonesian is not a language that allows the subject pronoun dropping like Spanish, that it doesn't distinguish between subject and object pronouns, that Nihit knows Kachru and Margie and Tony, that Indian people call "Uncle" any close friend of the family (I knew it already but I don't really "know" anything until I am faced with someone who says that his Uncle is Kachru when he is really a good friend of the family! Same thing with Indian people saying yes by shaking their head as if they were saying no!), that I got the student that Gigi kicked out last semester because of plagiarism, and that Delhi is up north when I always thought it was where Bombay is... I guess I'm going to have to learn more about India and Indonesia this semester! And about many more things too!
Today, I had planned to give the diagnostic test to the students, but instead, I gave them a quiz on the reading (on which they did well, much better than my last students!) and then we talked about quizzes, the importance of the readings, and the first project. We talked a lot about learning the "language" of English writing, getting used to terminology, styles, learning how to use the textbook and what to kinds of questions to expect from me, and just overall learning a new way of talking about things. I don't know if I have done that much last semester, but they asked a lot of questions, seemed genuinely interested, and had done the reading for today carefully. Then we talked about the project. It was hard for them to understand what is meant by "writer's autobiography" because many never thought about their writing, their education, and their culture. It is very hard for them to "step outside" and analyze their writing style/preferences/habits from a more objective point of view. I guess the assignment is vague: they can speak about people who influenced them, specific times when they learned something important, good or bad experiences... if I had to do it, I am not sure how I would do it either. But really, it is an important project because it forces them, we hope, to think about their native culture, their new one here, the differences between their native language(s) and English, why they like to write or not, and the ways they write in their native language and in English. We talked about characters and setting descriptions, attention catchers, organization, making the writing interesting and "alive," and how to think about the audience, not the general audience, but the very specific audience of our class. For Monday, they have some more readings to do and then I hope to give them the diagnostic test, which will help them free write about their writing experiences and lead them into the first project.
We might have had too much fun. It's very probable that at some point I'll have to be mean... have a "serious talk" with my new students or give them really low grades on their first project to show them that I expect more and that it's not because we can have fun in class that I don't expect high quality work from them! But for now, things are going well and I have nothing to complain about.
