As my life settles more and more into a routine, I am less and less inspired to write blog posts. Which makes sense, I think. It makes less sense when I realize that since I last posted, I’ve been to Lübeck three times (and I’m going again on Monday), I’ve been to Berlin twice, Heidelberg and Münster once each. I met a whole bunch of fun British language assistants and said good-bye to half of them at the end of February. I’ve discovered the German discotheque in full force, keeping hours that I won’t post because I know my parents and grandparents read this. I took along the Kiel harbor and saw the cutest brigantine I have ever seen. I made it back to the Yacht Club, getting to sail and work on boats and make new friends and connections.
In school news, our semesters switched over at the end of February and all of my classes have changed. Instead of working almost exclusively with the younger kids, I am now working exclusively with the older kids, taking them out in pairs or small groups and talking about various subjects in preparation for their English oral exams. While I miss the little kids and their overwhelming enthusiasm, I do enjoy having students who can hold a conversation. And I think we can all appreciate my ability to relate to surly teenagers.
Rainer, my mentor teacher, criticized me the other day for being too soft with students. Which, yes, that can be true. But, in context: I was working with two tenth grade girls on a speaking exercise. They’re not the best, but they’re not that bad. Rainer comes in and observes for a few minutes and then says that maybe next time he’ll give me one good student and one bad student, so they balance each other out. He goes on about bad students and how bad they are, so in a lull, I turn to the girls and say something encouraging, like, “But, don’t worry, you’re good!”
After class, Rainer says that I shouldn’t tell them they’re good because then they won’t understand why they’ve failed their orals. These girls were not that bad; they had a few minor grammar issues and needed some prompting to talk, but there is no reason to expect that they will fail. Though, he also told me to give stricter grammatical and vocabulary feedback, which I have since implemented and has worked quite well.
But the idea of not encouraging them still sticks with me. I’m trying to give them the confidence to simply be able to speak during their test. I think that if they are worried to much about this or that little grammatical point, it will be in a much more noticeable way than if they simply confidently talk past, through or around it. I know that my German is better when I just speak and don’t think too hard about it. Then again, I’ve never had to pass an oral exam in German (beyond every day life, that is). So who knows. Maybe my whole pedagogical theory is bunk. It’s not like I have any sort of training to be a teacher.
Also wrapped up in this critique was “I know you don’t want to be a teacher, but” being strict is a basic concept of teaching. I feel like he’s kind of disappointed that he got an assistant who’s not going in to be a teacher, but I also feel like that’s exactly why I’m useful. I don’t worry about pedagogical concepts, I just want the kids to talk to me. At the same time, I’ve realized why doing experiential education on boats was so great for me. I’ve long since realized that it’s good for the kids and I love watching them grasp an idea. On a personal note though, I’ve realized why I was good at it: teaching on a boat, I had a million different things capturing my attention at once. It’s not that classroom education is necessarily boring, just that I function and engage better when I’m doing several things at once. That probably says a lot about me right there.
In other news, my next year is still a bit nebulous. I have deferred the MA program in English literature at SUNY Buffalo for a year and hope to move to Berlin for the year. What I’ll do there is a bit uncertain. Either I’ll work or, if I’m really lucky, do a Master’s program. Education is much cheaper over here. Anyway, I’m on Spring Break for the next two weeks, so I hope to get a little caught up on blog posts. No promises though.
