the dark sides of my desk shifts

 Story one:

She spots me, approaches me, and I'm already confused.

This woman....

Part of my job is to sit at the front desk of our little literacy center, answer the telephone and in-person queries we have, tell them answers IF I even have the answers, and take messages for the coordinators who actually run the programs to get back to the people with questions. I run a completely different program that really has remotely nothing to do with the other programs, and therefore am 79% of the time useless, unless they need copies made.

Not everyone understands this, and sometimes even believe that we mind meld, or are the same people! Or, and I will come out and say it because it's true, they confuse the white girls. There are three of us. We're all tall, slim, and have similarly shades of long brown hair. We probably dress a little the same. I see how it happens, and it is unfortunate when it does, and it is devilishly confusing for all parties involved.

At any rate, Larinah* heads towards me. "The test", she says, "I take it".

"Which test?" I ask. "ESL? GED?" (I am able to administer the GED Official Practice Test (OPT), but know nothing about adult basic education or ESL testing.)

"The test, I take."

"Which test?" I ask. "ESL? GED?"

"test", she says.

"Which test?" I ask, again.

This exchange will go on forever. She lacks the knowledge that we run many programs with many tests, and lacks the language skills to communicate anything else.

I am finally rescued by a coworker who knows what Larinah needs. Thank heavens. She gives Larinah the test (ESL!), and leaves for the day.

.....


She comes to the front desk. Again.

"You will be here, at 7?"
 
"It is 7", I say. 

"I coming back... here... at 7. You be here?"

"It is 7:00 now", I say. 

"...yes?" I eventually say.


 
.......

She returns at 7:15p.m.

Our ideas of time are as different as our ideas of what my job actually is. 

I was in the office, setting up a laptop for someone, while another coworker came to her/my rescue.

She thought that I would grade her ESL test in those few minutes that she was gone. I don't know why.

He explained to her that the ESL Coordinator grades the test, and she has to come back next week for the results...

 but I know she'll be back, with more confusing statements and half questions.



 Story two:


"I am here. My name is Viendong*."

He spoke in unintelligible language(s?) while I asked him:

"are you here for ESL?" "do you know your teacher's name?" "did you register for classes?"

"My name is Viendong."

Enter a Vietnamese language speaker, a friend of Viendong's. A rapid exchange, and finally a translation.

During the translation exchange, a Spanish speaker entered the builidng, and rapid fired a question at me in Spanish. I know this question, and its answer, and answer it successfully, and forget to celebrate that achievement as I am puzzled by Viendong and his friends.

Friends with an "s" because there is another man with them.  

I find out which class they are there for, and that only 2 out of the three of them have registered for classes. We have a policy that students must register for this exact reason, students will start bringing their friends and family.

The third man can't go into the class. If we make an exception once, more will come, and we will have overcrowded classrooms and not enough teachers.

"He can't go home" they tell me. "He came with us." And I understand, and it makes me so sad.

So he has to sit on the couch in the large room, beside a science class that is going on.

I email for a bit, then think about what I could do. I have no idea what level he is at, and can't start teaching him English, because he may come back, and I have the desk to cover for the night.


A small Vietnamese man now sits in the office, trying to figure out how to operate the computer, and Mango languages, a computer based language program... He says a few words in his tongue occasionally. I can't tell whether he's frustrated or happy... It's about as useful as a circle band-aid for a laceration that needs stitches, but it is the only thing I can do for now.


And later, I hear more activity in there. He's swinging around on the swivel chair, just like I do, mastering how to work the mouse and the program...











*name changed

Quasi-ESL: Texas Style

In November I drove a long way, from the Appalachians of central Pennsylvania to the proverbial heart of Texas. I am probably a little too proud to have made it from Canton, Ohio to Waco, Texas without, yes, WITHOUT a GPS!

Within my memory, I had never been further south than Maysville, KY, (with the exception of traveling the entire length of the Eastern Seabaord).

I gasped at the beauty of crossing the Mississippi at sunset, the fabled Big Muddy Laura Ingalls had told me about since my childhood. Over 100 years later, my crossing was slightly faster and quite a bit less dangerous than hers. I screamed in horror at the sight of my first  "foreign" roadkill--an armadillo. A similar sound escaped me when I drove past a "sleeping" puppy looking creature, the coyote. Later I pretended to be a cowboy, chasing a train as our routes--its tracks and my highway held parallel for awhile, Johnny Cash in the background. I discovered my newest dislike: Texas driving, and my newest favourite food tie: a fierce battle between Texas toast and authentic Tex-Mex. I fought with the frustration of not knowing where the nearest Target was, or which grocery stores to go to. I was homeless for 2 weeks. I lived out of my car, and slept on people's floors and the occasional couch.

Now, almost 3 or 4 months later...

Some improvements I've made: cooking. I can proudly say I'm a better cook than I was when I left Pennsylvania. With only 2 other roommates, there is enough room in the fridge and pantry for more food, and more experimentation, with fabulous results most of the time!

Another improvement is stretching my people skills. My supply of energy reserved for working with and meeting new people is being expanded all the time.


....


Things I can't do: give someone a ride to the gas station to fill up a makeshift can of gas.


And the look of the overweight father's eyes when I told him how far away the closest gas station was terrible. His two young daughters were with him, and their car had ran out of gas beside my workplace. They slowly trudged off with my post-it note directions, and I didn't see them again.

An Update

Hello everyone!

If you're reading this, fabulous! and thank you! I'm planning on blogging more when I get a job in ESL/education. It's been awhile since I graduated, and am diligently searching far and wide. Stay tuned! I may write about my adventures working at the movie theater!

Leaving/Follow Up

"How was student teaching?"

"How was Malaysia?"

I've been asked this twice, and my initial reaction is to stare, then blink, wide-eyed, with an open mouth until my reflexes save me by uttering something generic, like "good", or "great".

And in all honesty, depending on my position in processing, my answer may vary.

One of my close friends just spent the past 6 months in the Philippines, on a rural island doing an internship. An email full of re-entry tips was sent out to all interns, one of the tips was to "practice short and meaningful answers".

You can't sum up these experiences into short answers. You can try, but how do you answer those questions?

My answers come out in stories, over a long period of time, and in photos, in impressions, and feelings. My own family still has not heard all of the stories of my times in China, or Chile.

But for the purposes of this blog, I will try to summarize.

I had a wonderful experience student teaching this semester. I could not have asked for better cooperating teachers, classes, or situations that happened. I am incredibly grateful for those who have kept me in their thoughts and prayers, for while it was a great semester, it was not without great difficulty at times!

The last week of student teaching was full of grading, and last minute end-tying. I did "comments" for all the ESL students, which is an evaluation on their quarterly report card of strengths and areas of improvement. There were Christmas parties and goodbyes.

I ended the semester by going to the Philippines for a week. I returned to the US on December 23rd, ready to relax and spend time with family before going back to NY.

In my first blog post of the semester, I mentioned not seeing myself as a teacher. I see myself as owning more of that title now.

I hope to continue to write about ESL and the world, for they are full of adventures.

Happy New Year!

The hardest thing I had to do.

I have often been asked what the hardest part of my trip was. My answer has always been leaving. I love change, I hate change, and leaving a place and the people there means change is inevitable, as is my love-hate relationship with it. While I know I will have a hard time leaving Dalat and Penang, the hardest thing I have done here so far is dealing with a student's plagiarism on a big assignment. 


When my first cooperating teacher left, I was left with many unfinished projects. One we decided to continue was an intensive, quarter long biography assignment. The students had been assigned a biography to read, write summaries and reflections on for every chapter, and give a presentation dressed up and in character. 


Of course they procrastinated. 


However, the presentations went smoothly, and I moved on to grade the reflections.


Some of the students had clearly put a lot of time and thought into their summaries and reflections. Some had obviously not.


Overall, I was impressed. I was too impressed, it turned out, especially when a student's writing began using advanced phrasing and words that I didn't even know. With some google detective work, I found out that the first 11 chapters were directly copied from CliffsNotes. I was highly upset. It was late at night, and I had to now go back over the other students' work to make sure they had not done the same thing. 


I was also very upset with the book assignment. It was an adult level book, in content and in language. Assigned to a 6th grade ESL student. You don't do that. It puts the student in a position of needing to seek outside help, and in a position of cheating. It is not pedagogically sound in the least bit, either.

The next day, I discussed my findings with the MS Principal. He said according to Dalat Policy, a zero should be given. I also talked with the long-term ESL sub about the situation. The book was inappropriate, in content and in level. We didn't want to give the student a zero. The book was ridiculously hard. However, something had to be done. 

I ended up talking with the student about the situation and their actions. Extreme remorse was expressed. (I was holding back my own tears). Blatant plagiarism was never the intention, the book was simply to hard, and the content too inappropriate. Copying was coping for this ELL (English Language Learner). The embarrassment and shame of the situation was enough of a consequence, we felt. I made sure the student knew they were put into a bad position, but also that they could go to the teacher or principal for help if they felt an assignment was above their level.  Hopefully a lifetime lesson was learned.

I know I learned.

You're not in NY, anymore-- a look at the surface differences of Penang

It has been said that you learn more about your culture by looking at a different one. 


Here, I am learning about my culture by living a different one. 


Here are some more obvious surface differences of life in Penang and life in the US:


In the US, I shop at stores with walls for food and clothes. Very rarely do I eat out, or buy food from a street vendor.


In Penang, I shop anywhere-- in the mall, or in the open air nightmarket. We eat out almost every day, and the food we get is from "hawker stalls", little shanties or more permanent open structures that host a variety of food.


              And when you eat out in Penang, you get your drinks from the same person you order the food from. Here, more often than not, a stall will sell either drinks or food, not both. 


And speaking of food, seeing cats and dogs in eating and food prep areas is normal. I realized that restaurants that are "shut down" due to health violations would be first class, pristine environments compared to some of the stalls here. And you know what? I don't even care that the person may have not even washed their hands. I am grateful for the food, it is good.

My nose, taste buds, and lungs have not had to compete with cigarette smoke while eating for a very, very long time. Remember the times when they had the almost useless "smoking sections" in the States? That isn't even thought of here. 

When I'm at home, I take my shoes off when I get inside, sometimes they make it to the shoe rack. 

Here, my neighbours in the apartment building all have many pairs of shoes strewn about before their doors, or neatly stacked on a gigantic shoe rack outside of their doors. The only problem I would have with doing this is the question of--how safe are all those shoes just lying by themselves? Will someone come by used shoe shopping, or is it just something nobody even thinks about stealing because they all do it? 

 

At home, there are fake and real Christmas trees. In the stores and public places, they go up in October, sometimes.

Here, there are no real Christmas trees. They have only just started putting up the fake ones (everywhere). My students had so many questions regarding this tradition: if the trees we get in the US are actually real, why we get real ones, where we get them, and if I was really pulling the wool over their eyes when I told them about Christmas Tree Farms. Their questions made me laugh a little inside. Those things we in the North take for granted and as tradition are thought of as near fiction to students who have grown up on the equator. 

At home, I am quite resistant to ever turning on the AC in the summer, with the exception of heat waves. Here, one of my favourite things at night is turning on my aircon in my room and journalling under the comforter... At home, I am mostly cold. Here, I am still cold unless I am outside. My teachers still laugh incredulously at my quirky need to always have a sweater/scarf inside. (Those rooms are COLD!) Air con. 25 degrees C is cool. 22C is air from the arctic. The ESL room is small, and feels like 19 degrees when the aircon is on.

When I find bugs at home, they are met with an ear piercing war-cry and imminent death. Here, I have more of a "live, and let live" mentality. They aren't really hurting me, and there are just so many that it is almost fruitless. This does not however, stop me in my daily attempts to oust the spider in my WC. I dump water on it, it moves to a drier spot on the large tub of water. We have a routine. 

an experiment

Wednesday. 


I walked out of the full classroom and turned left, so the students wouldn't see me. The noise grew louder with each step I took away from the classroom. I ran away from the windows, laughing now, as I met my classroom teacher, and two supervisors on the stairs. I waited four minutes before I entered the classroom again, and I was greeted by chaos....


Before the class began, I put potato chips and skittles in bowls, and set these on the student's clusters of desks.


I turned my camera on, hid it in a desk, and put it into video recording mode. 


I wrote the "Do Now" on the board. #3 was to NOT TOUCH  THE FOOD.


I greeted the students at the door. After the students entered, most shouting about the food, I pressed the camera's record button, then announced I had to run to the copy room. "I'm sorry I put the food out" I said apologetically, "I shouldn't have done that in the beginning of the period, it is for you all at the end of class". 


While my feelings on teaching Bible remain mixed, I set up a memorable (at least for me) social experiment.


Before class, I found four of my students outside, and told them they could have a mission, if they accepted. Their mission was to: eat the food I put out on the table, no matter what I or others said. They could start to eat the food, and try to get the other students to do so once I left the room. Some of them were "good kids", so I thought it would be interesting. They weren't allowed to tell anyone else about their "mission". 


We had been learning about temptation, and to spice things up, the 6th grade teachers and I thought of this activity. 


...As I entered the room after the 4 minutes, I first expressed my shock at the situation, then admitted to setting them up, and recording the audio of the class. (I gave the rest of the students who had figured out it was a set up permission to eat the chips and skittles). The students were in an uproar for the next two days about the whole experiment; their reactions to it were only fed by being able to listen to themselves the next day. Despite the difficulty I had getting their attention for the rest of the week, I believe that they did indeed learn the objectives of the lesson-- strategies to deal with temptation, what it can look like, etc. 


I am so glad I was able to do this. One of the unique aspects of teaching at Dalat is that we can do things like this, and build on them. I actually did this during a formal lesson in which I was being formally observed, I am grateful that my supervisors were on board with the activity.  It made teaching Bible more fun for me, and hopefully more fun for the students to learn. It let the students see I love to laugh and have fun, and gave them an opportunity to laugh with me, something that I think doesn't happen often. While "having authority" in the classroom is important, I want them to see that the "authority" in the classroom is a human too.