The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 5

Well, it's been 4 days since my last post (and my first day of The Great 9-Week Experiment). You guys probably have no idea how happy and relieved I am that it's the weekend. It's been a total disaster, these past few days. I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start from the very beginning. On second thoughts, maybe not. I don't want to scare you all.

I taught my first class yesterday. We had the school assembly in the morning, and halfway through I had a very terrible stomach ache so I had to escape for a while. I returned just in time for the prize-giving ceremony for the cleanest classes in the school, and the whole assembly ended at about 8 o'clock. So I rushed to my first class, and man, all I remember of that is the amount of shouting, pointing, scolding and threatening I had to do. It was only the first time I taught that class and already I had to do all that? See me shake my head in despair. How private is my blog anyway? If I mention names, will they show up on the search engines "by accident"? I should check that before mentioning any names. Teehee. But anyway, that was the first class of yesterday, and I went back to the staff room in frustration. Then it was time for my second class, and man, I really didn't think it could get any worse than the first class, but dear friends, I was greatly mistaken. They were total hooligans! Gangster-wannabes, all of them! I tried being friendly, it didn't work. I even tried being firm and strict, and it worked for a while, and then it failed. Unlike the first class, this second class of mine are really proficient in the English language. And man, can they ask questions. It's one thing if the questions have something to do with the lesson, but their questions were everything under the sun, minus anything to do with the actual lesson. They were quite uncontrollable too. I really had to do a lot of shouting.

This morning was no better. The first class was the one with students who couldn't really speak English. I taught the literal meaning of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this morning, and I was trying to get the students to actually listen to me. I got so fed up with how unruly they were that I finally said something along the lines of: "SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! Kalau you tak nak belajar, tak apa. Tidur! Jangan bising! TIDUR! Yang lain, kalau nak belajar, duduk kat depan. OI! YOU! TIDUR SEKARANG! Letak kepala atas meja! JANGAN BISING! TIDUR!" or something along those lines. Half of the class literally cheered in glee when I told them I really didn't care if they didn't learn, as long as they kept quiet. The front row of kids were better. At least they were quiet/brought their books/paid whatever little attention they could spare. Towards the end of the lesson, some of the boys from the back actually moved to the second row. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend they did that so that they could hear what I was trying to teach. I left the class, so worked up and annoyed that I was sweating all the way back to the staff room.

The second class was much better. They were really noisy, but at least they were doing some work at the same time. Since they were the more proficient class, I thought I could leave them to construct posters on the themes of the same poem. I told them to collect their manila cards, and there was a squabble over which group got what colour manila card. I handed out marker pens, and there was a debate over which colour marker pens would 'match' which colour manila cards. I pre-assigned them various themes in yesterday's class, and today the entire class voted (oh yes, we're really very democratic you know) to select their own themes. I walked around the class to 'monitor seatwork', and they asked me even more interesting questions than yesterday. But for all the arguments, commotion, and near-fights (there was one yesterday), I think this class is actually easier to teach (and definitely more likeable) than the first class. At least in this class, they're naughty, but you can see they're still quite nice at the bottom of all that show of bravado (you've actually got to dig quite deep to see it). I wanted them to present their posters during the second period, but they couldn't finish their posters, so I said we'll present it next week lah. Aiyoh. Why like this one?

I really dread the next 8 weeks. It's gonna be 8 long weeks of sleepless nights, early mornings, and shouting. Can I quit my teaching practice now? Talking about quitting, my supervisor came this morning (yeah I can't see what quitting's got to do with my supervisor too). He observed my other two friends' classes, but he didn't observe my class. Some of my students in the better class actually asked me where he was. They even told me they spotted him, and I'm beginning to think maybe they were more excited and nervous than I was. Some students asked me yesterday (after I told them my supervisor would be coming to observe my class) whether I wanted them to 'act'. It took almost everything to not burst out laughing right there and then.

Well, I'm stopping here for today. Enough blogging about depressing topics. I'll try to blog soon.