My senior year of high school, I would fall asleep between 8-10 pm and wake up at 4:00 in the morning to do my homework. I liked the quietness of the morning and the feeling of productivity I achieved doing work without the tv in the background. When I did my homework in the evenings, there was always some new episode of something to draw my attention away from the work in front of me. In addition, I usually did some of my best work when the clock ticked away my deadline.
Now, I can't sleep until 2:30/3:00 in the morning, which means I don't rise until 9:30-11:00. I don't like it as much. I've tried and tried to get my sleeping patterns back on track, tried to make it more comfortable. I've gone to bed at 10:00/11:00 on several occasions, but I always end up lying there for hours and hours and hours and hours, yawning into the darkness. And, I don't know who invented counting sheep, but he/she was an idiot. The only thing that counting sheep does is make you think of other barn yard animals which has you singing "Old McDonald had a Farm, EIEIO." Believe me, it is NOT pleasant to get that song stuck in your head.
However, tonight might prove to be the night that Mr. Sandman decides to visit me at a reasonable hour. See, this morning I actually woke up at 8:30 and did not, I repeat DID NOT, go back to sleep. I was assigned a Saturday class this week. And, although that means that I no longer have a day off besides Sunday, it does mean that I get paid extra for the class. A nice compromise I think. Plus, if today proves to be a template for the rest of the classes to come, I will really enjoy it.
For one thing, it is a TOEFL class. Because it is a testing class, the students are at a slightly higher level (intermediate-ish).
Second, there are only three students enrolled in the class, and one of them never showed up today. The two that did show up are a couple. They know each other and are comfortable speaking in front of one another. Even when I had games where they competed against each other, they would help the other person out.
Third, because it is a small, TOEFL class I can pick the curriculum. There is not a course book. In fact, the only book I have is a book of practice tests. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give my students practice test after practice test after practice test. For those who don't know, TOEFL is the standardized test that international students need to take and score well on to get into universities in the United States. Its roughly the US equivalent of Europe's IELTS exam. However, I do think that it is better than the IELTS. The TOEFL is special because almost all of its tasks are integrated. Students are expected to listen to a lecture, read an article and then respond to both of them through speaking and writing. Most of the audio clips are from actual college lectures, which prepares them for entering university. In addition, the tests forces students to learn words or guess the meanings of words through context (which is a sadly lacking skill - even in the US).
The ambiguousness in the coursebooks means that I have more freedom to plan my lessons. When I found out that the class is extremely small and the couple is interested in some day moving to the States I asked them how they wanted the class structured (after all, it is a business). While they do want to practice and study for the TOEFL, they would also be interested in learning some English related to other things in the States (i.e. culture: movies, music, technology, shopping).
The good news for my students is I spent 21 years in the States. I've taken the Texas TAAS test and the Texas TAKS test many, many times. I've taken the ACTs and the SATs. I competed in expository writing in high school for four years. Basically, I know US standardizing testing. Now, hopefully I will be able to impart my knowledge to them.
The class meets for three academic hours every Saturday (which is 2 hours 15 minutes). I told my students that they will every week they will need to learn and write down in a vocabulary journal ten new vocabulary words along with the part of speech, the definition and a sentence using that word. They will also begin each class with a no-pressure journal question. Hopefully, without putting too much pressure on journal writing, they will be able to practice writing at length without feeling overwhelmed. The intense writing comes towards the end of each lesson.
Today, I combined American culture with the TOEFL skills by utilizing the holiday season. Today's focus was . . . HALLOWEEN. Russians don't celebrate Halloween, but they do know a little about it. I'll admit, I never celebrated Halloween either growing up. But, as a native English teacher, part of the job is to impart cultural traditions along with the language. It makes lessons more fun and interesting than regular grammar exercises. For my other classes I had found and used a few texts on Halloween origins and traditions in other countries (the US, Mexico and Britain). So, I reused them today to teach basic reading skills like scanning and context reading. The texts were at an upper high-intermediate to a low intermediate reading level except for a few Halloween-related words like ancestors, neopagans, graves, etc. However, they were able to guess the meaning of most of the words through context. I was so proud and happy.
It was just one of those lessons that actually made me feel good to be a teacher. I know that I made several mistakes in the lessons and not everything went as planned (for one I was expecting and thus planned a lesson for more students), but the lesson as fun (at least for me). I hope (and think) they enjoyed it too, and I hoped they actually learned from it.
Anyways, the lesson was good. The weather is fabulous. The night is just right. And I am very contented. How are you doing on this dazzling night of darkness ( no evil pun intended)?
Sincerely,
Your Russian Traveller
P.S. Thinking of the night makes me think of the old children's song.
I see the moon, the moon sees me
The moon sees somebody I want to see
God bless the moon and God bless me
And God bless the somebody I want to see.
Where are you tonight? Are you away from family and friends as I am? After all, Halloween was originally celebrated because people believed that on the 31st, the end of the Celtic calendar, they could communicate with their beloved departed ones. It was a blessing for those left behind. So, God bless you tonight wherever you are.
Your Russian Traveller
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