The past few days have been a treasure trove of experience and frustration! While we managed to hire a new teacher before the actual site lead went on R&R, none of the real problems came about until afterward. First, we managed to get more students. This was expected, of course, so it wasn't really a big deal... really! The problem was that the students who came and those we had on our list were not necessarily one in the same. I had to go through all the people that were in the files that we had in a different system to see if we could find them and figure out where we were supposed to put them. I initilally placed them based on what they told me their scores were as well as how well I believed their oral proficiency to be. Of course, with this course oral proficiency is the least of what matters!
After getting them split into classes, everyone starts complaining. With the site lead leaving, I had to take over his class which had grown to 18 (a MAX of 15 is allowed in a class). My old class started to complain about getting an Afghan teacher whom they thought was not going to do them any good. My new class found it necessary to complain that I don't teach like the site lead, so therefore I am doing it all wrong. In addition to that, the new students have already been aviators or have an English ability that would enable them to go on to training, so they resent being there and cause problems for me. One likes to show off and find obsure words, use them, and tell me that I don't know anything because I don't know the word. I have taken to ignoring him for the most part, but it is really frustrating.
After almost working through these problems, my old students took their book quiz. They didn't do too badly, but it marked the time for them to move on to the next book. Unfortunately we do not have the book they are going into, so I gave them the following it. This caused many expected problems as well as one unexpected one. I had just enough books for the students, so I felt fortunate. Then I found out that whoever had taken inventory of the books prior to me had placed about 4 or 5 in the wrong place: they were Teacher Texts instead of Student Texts! Now the students need to share a book until the new ones get here. I am not sure when that is going to happen, but it really should be soon as I ordered them about a week ago.. I just hope the same doesn't happen to my class as well as I will be giving a book quiz tomorrow.
Today is Wednesday and both my Contract Instructors (the Afghans) are going home to their city. This means that this afternoon and tomorrow, I will be the only instructor for the 3 classes. I am thinking I may cancel classes for the others, give the book quiz, and then let them go as well. This is hopefully not going to be a problem in the future as we are in the process of getting one more American here as well as the site lead will eventually return. Hopefully we will have enough staff then to man all the classes we need. Hopefully we will also recieve the books that we are supposed to have so that we can properly move from one level to the next. I also don't feel bad saying: I WANT my old class back!!!!
I am so glad that my day off is coming... hopefully it gets here quickly. I have not been eating lunch and dinner, nor have I been sleeping well. I guess this is probably not the best of things for this environment, but there you have it! I am staying safe, so now if only I would make sure to keep myself healthy as well.
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