Today was a good day overall. I was a little tired when I arrived to school, but I was hopeful about how the day would go. Today was the Group 2 Vets/Engineers. We studied a little about countries and nationalities. One of the students is from Iran, and she said that she spoke Persian. I told her that the language is actually called Farci, and she was surprised that I actually knew that. She said it was the first time anyone has actually said it to her. This was somewhat of a surprise to me as I thought most people who were teaching ESL in the area would know that. Hmmmm...
One of these students is also a real pain in the neck! He thinks he knows everything. He tries to tell me what we should be focusing on in the lesson, and that the definition for student that was in the book was wrong. The book said that a student is someone who studies at the school or university, and he said that this was actually a pupil; a student only studies at primary school. Of course in British English this is correct. This meant that I had to attempt to explain that there are MANY differences between British and American English in pronunciation, grammar, and terminology. We will have to talk about them when they come up, but hopefully we can minimize it for much of the time!
The next class was the afternoon class when everyone is tired from the heat and the food they have just eaten. So, I try to get them to focus on what we are doing, for an hour and a half, hoping something will sink in. At least I did learn that the company is going to finally start sending the tests for us so we don't have to write them ourselves. Of course we will have to wait and see if they keep coming, but they should. This means we don't have to worry about writing them ourselves from now on, which takes a load off!
After class, the other teacher and I began to talk about the students and their shortcomings. It appears that the jump from book two to book three was so difficult for them not because the English was so much more difficult, but because the comprehension is expected to be so much greater. I believe that there is an underlying assumption that the students have these abilities in their native language; however these students do not. It definitely makes a difference. I am now in the process of trying to make some exercises where I can walk them through the process of finding the information in the passage. Hopefully it will help.
Today I am going to go out to the local German restaurant and get a different type of meal. I hear it is slightly expensive, but it will be an interesting experience nonetheless. Hopefully the food is good!
Where ya at? :)
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