No News is Good News

I’ve been gently reminded that I have not posted any new entries since mid-January and people may be curious to know what I’ve been up to for the last month or so. Well, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in school work and loving it! It’s not a good excuse but the three courses I’m teaching this semester have definitely filled up all the free time I seemed to have to let you know what’s been happening. Again, my sense of admiration for all teachers continues to grow as every teaching day passes. The amount of time that goes into simply prepping a lesson and then marking the homework that you’ve assigned is often mind-boggling. I can tell you I’ve become a lot more efficient with my time; my days of procrastination are behind me. Part of being a good teacher is being prepared a week in advance, enough time to get together any teaching materials I might need and catching the photocopier on a good day, ie. it’s cooperating and the power is on, two key ingredients 

We just completed mid-term exams last week and I was encouraged by the overall rise in marks among my students. I have a sneaking suspicion they might have studied some this time around. I have really enjoyed the English class I was assigned this semester in addition to the two afternoon classes. It’s a writing-intensive course that is meant to prepare the Diploma I students to write solid research papers in English. We’ve gone over the different kinds of paragraphs and are now delving into composition writing with the standard format of introductory paragraph, body, and closing paragraph. I’m constantly having flashbacks to my elementary school days of trying to come up with a good topic sentence, not to mention a complete report.

I had an enlightening discussion with my advanced English class before the mid-term break. I was beginning to feel frustrated with the lack of participation and my inability to engage my students. I had exhausted just about every creative English learning activity I could think of when I decided to ask them again what they wanted to do during our class. I’d tried this several times before and had only received blank stares; I had no idea what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of suggestions they gave me and the amount of good ideas they came up with. Turns out they want to learn English through drama. They love to act but have no opportunities to put their gifts and talents to good use. I had no idea! I had never seen any of them perform a skit or drama during chapel and here they were telling me this is what they want to do and they’d love to put on some sort of play for the rest of the school to see. Our final semester project has all of the students working in small groups, writing and then performing their skits for the rest of the class. If all goes well, we’ll be doing more of the same in our next semester.

Overall, this teaching assignment has been a roller coaster ride with good days and bad days, moments of sheer excitement and complete disappointment. Through it all, I’m learning not to be so easily discouraged and to focus on the positive, especially when it feels as though everything I taught in the previous lesson has been forgotten. Learning is a long-term process, as my brother, Phil, reminded me. I may not see many results instantly but I can walk away knowing I passed on as much of my knowledge as I possibly could and what my students do with it is up to them. Relying on God is the most important part of my “survival strategy”, spending time every morning in prayer and facing the day with the knowledge that I am not alone in my daily struggles of teaching and living in a foreign culture. Your thoughts and prayers are also an endless source of encouragement to me. Thank-you!