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By Sam Sherry
Artwork by Lisa Allen
When I sat down to write an article about teaching English in Taiwan, the first thing s that came to mind were the horror stories : kids fighting, swearing, talking about porn, pulling each others' pants down -- and they were just the ten-year-olds.
A couple of months ago, I was asked to sub for what turned out to be one of those horrific classes. It was for two days. I was inexperienced and other teachers had quit the school before over that class. I came away from those two days with an immense respect for teachers who succeed with such classes and love what they do. I have since continued to teach, and have even managed to savour a few small victories of my own.
One of these triumphs took place back in the spring, when I spent a week as a substitute teacher for a class of two boys aged 10 and 11. They could not have been greater opposites. The older boy was highly intelligent and he knew it. He was one of those smart-arses who would jump in at every opportunity to answer a question, and was usually right. The younger boy was very quiet and would only speak up only when coerced.
Despite my lack of experience I was keen to encourage the younger boy to speak. I tried reading aloud, playing games of noughts and, and of course, the ubiquitous sticky ball. I can hear some of you shuddering from here, but they both seemed to enjoy themselves-- at least until they had a writing lesson.
While the older boy was happily scribbling away, the younger boy stared blankly at an empty page. As I tried in vain to encourage him to write, I ignored a golden rule of motivating children : if you m ake something a task, it will never be fun or easy .
But, how to make it fun? I didn't realise the answer until the end of the week. I was sick of seeing that tragic, pained expression on his face as he struggled to answer questions. I decided I'd just let him enjoy himself. So we played out an impromptu penalty shoot-out using the sticky ball, with me as "goalkeeper" standing in front of the whiteboard. He took great delight in throwing the ball past my diving, outstretched arms at the board, and I gave him three points for every "goal". I think I got a bit high on the adrenaline from lunging desperately to my left and right, sometimes knocking down, and even catching, the ball. We were both laughing and smiling, and, eventually he won. It was the happiest I'd seen him all week.
Somehow, even if he hadn't grasped a single word of what I had been teaching him, having fun was all that mattered.
Since I started teaching private students, usually without the safety net of a lesson plan, I 've found that triumph can often be as simple as seeing my students happy. Because I am from Australia, many students ask me about that strange English game, cricket. After digging up some material online for them to read, I devised a game to get them familiar with the different ways of scoring and how batsmen can get out. Before class, I wrote, on a bunch of flashcards, every possible way you can score or get called out in cricket, shuffled them thoroughly, and got the kids to take turns to draw cards from the top of the pile. To my surprise, before long they were excitedly pulling out "six" (like a home run in baseball), even groaning with dismay after pulling out "leg before wicket" or "run out" cards (for the uni ni tiated, these are bad news when you are batting). Soon, they were even competing to see who could get the highest score before "getting out".
If, like me, you still struggle to control those little terrors that seem unable to sit still for five minutes, don't give up hope. It takes time and experience to learn how to be swift and firm in your actions.
Triumph for an English teacher can take many forms. It could be the satisfaction you gain from seeing the change in individual students in your class . Perhaps it's earning the praise of your laoban for doing a great job with a difficult class , or even using your substantial experience dealing with kids to open your own school in a foreign land . But small triumphs, like the ones I have just shared with you, happen every day in schools all over Taiwan and each one is worth savouring. |
