December blues

Arg! Margot (our American boss) was one hundred percent correct when she explained that American teachers in the NCUSCR program often experience frustrations during December. I’ve become a statistic because I’m feeling these emotions at this point in our stay. I’m doing my best to focus on the positives and remain energetic in the classroom, but it’s been a bit of a struggle these past couple of weeks. I think it’s a mixture of student ambivalence, my homesickness (it's hard being away from the States during the holiday season), and everyone’s desperate need for a vacation. I’ll keep pushing through the difficult times and I’m sure I’ll grow from the experience; it’s not always fun now, but I’m sure it will be worthwhile in the end.

I started a new lesson yesterday. The strategy of making Monday the beginning of a fresh topic is working well. Jean-Jacques and I both had flop classes yesterday, so we were happy we could collaborate to make this week’s sessions better. 


Here’s a brief rundown of what we’re doing this week: I post a picture of a mini Christmas tree in snow (see the above picture) and play holiday music for the students as they file into the classroom. I then show them the warm-up question: Briefly describe what you already know about... 1) Hanukkah and 2) Christmas. (The warm-up causes quite a disruption in the room because none of the students have heard of Hanukkah, so they’re troubled they can’t answer the question. I have to assure them that it’s OK for them to write, “I don’t know anything about Hanukkah.”)


To teach them about Hanukkah, I post some vocabulary words (dreidel, menorah, and latkes) and explain how they are important to the holiday. I give a short lecture that contains basic information about the celebration and we watch a Sesame Street segment about the Hanukkah story; after the clip, I ask them some simple questions about the film.


We then start discussing Christmas. I run through more vocabulary words (Christmas tree, elf, stocking, Santa Claus, mistletoe, reindeer, and eggnog), explain how Americans celebrate the holiday, post pictures of houses covered in Christmas lights, show a clip of a light show at someone’s house that has been designed to flash in time with a special song, show a clip of Mr. Bean’s Christmas, run through six word scrambles that use the new vocabulary I introduced, sing “Jingle Bells” together using a YouTube karaoke version of the song, and answer some closure questions that are designed to review some key information we covered during the class. 


It seems like a fairly exciting lesson, but sadly, some of the students seem too sleepy to participate in the activities. Maybe it’s me who's dropping the ball, but I don’t think that’s the problem. Jean-Jacques and I both agree that the students are stressed, exhausted, and burned-out. They’ve simply had enough and need a break. 


Today I confiscated a video player that one student had been viewing during class. I practically made him cry when I asked him why he was watching a movie during class and not paying attention to me. At first, he refused to reply. However, after I questioned him four times, waited for his answer, wrote the word “Why” on the board, and waited again for his response, he finally said, “I was bored.” 


I replied, “That’s very rude and if I ever see this again, I will talk to your head teacher about it and that won’t be good.” 


The boy never apologized, but he was visibly uncomfortable with the confrontation, so hopefully he won’t repeat the offense. 


I think I have finally fixed my cabled sweater after numerous rows that I’ve had to frog. Yes, it’s been a headache, but I think I’ll be happy with the result. I’d better be, since it’s taken a long time to complete and it’s caused me to suffer though many hours of frustration while I corrected and re-corrected all the mistakes. 


P.S. It’s freezing right now! Literally. The forecast is predicting snow, so I won’t be surprised if we wake up to a little blanket of white outside tomorrow morning.