Teaching...

In terms of teaching, I barely got to do it because only about one third of the students showed up. During the first week Saghriah said we should just let them play so that is what I did.I mostly baby sat and secured the front of the classroom door. They loved using the play dough and made such a mess with it. It made me happy to see how each child interacted with each other. It's amazing to see how different their personalities are when they are so young. Nwal was miss sassy and had to be in control. Hamed was a sweet and calm boy. Salem was the trouble maker. Nasser was the mamas boy and thought he could do anything.

I was ready to teach at least one lesson by thursday of the first week but that didn't happen. On Thursday, Saghriah explained she probably won't be teaching at our school anymore. I was like oh no that's too bad. In my head, I was jumping for joy. She was rude to me everyday during that week. The worse event that took place was when I was explaining with gestures where the students should put their bags she just yelled at the students to sit down. She had no respect for me as a teacher. Also, she would have other Arabic teachers come and visit, and when they did their conversations would last more than fifteen minutes. In the states, if a teacher did that we would be in trouble.

When I asked why she was leaving, she told me her husband didn't want her working o far away from home. She told me she lived twenty minutes away. I thought to myself twenty minute?! That is great timing. People would kill in the states to only live twenty minutes from their workplace. The way she told me the news, I could tell she wasn't too happy but she had to listen to her husband. It quickly passed my mind that I could get someone worse but I tried to stay positive.

On the second week,  I met my new Arabic teacher Mrs. Amal. She was a wonderful lady. The students loved her immediately. Before class started she introduced herself, explained her background and asked about mine. She was the total opposite of Saghriah. I was so relieved to learn that she had experience with English teachers and she was happy to be working with me.

The first English lesson I had for the students was to learn the letter A. I showed Amal my lesson plan. I had it written down  on a sheet of paper. I wanted to tell and show them the letter, have them repeat after me and then I'd point out which pictures started with the letter. At the end of the lesson I would have them color the letter and the pictures. Mrs. Amal told me that lesson was way too hard for the students. I was like really? My daughter was three years old when I taught her the alphabets. She didn't know everything but letter recognition is a good starting point for pre school children. Mrs. Amal strongly suggested I have them color the pictures that started with the letter A. I took her advice but I felt I should have done it my way. I felt like I cheated the students out of learning the right way. During recess, I asked the other English teachers what was going on in their classes. They had it worse than I did. Some teachers could still barely get the students to stay in class and commit to one task. The other teachers had issues with their Arabic teachers and didn't even get a lesson taught. I just thought to myself, clearly the way the students were learning English in the past wasn't working so why couldn't the Arabic teachers let us do it our way? It was hard but I kept trying each day with Amal to make it work. I was able to teach some math lessons dealing with colors and shapes. I also was able to read a few stories to the students. They were engaged and excited to learn and mimic what I was saying to them.