I know the traditional saying is "Rome wasn't built in a day," but this is an actual French proverb that possibly derived from the one we are used to hearing about patience. After today, I think I may need my own derivative of the proverb. Something along the lines of "A teacher can't teach an entire unit in a day." Ok, it needs some work.
When I woke up this morning, I was looking forward to my mentally drafted blog post bellowing of a successful first day of teaching. After lesson planning, lesson revising, lesson re-writing, and lesson practicing, I assumed my nerves were all for nothing and I would wrap up my evening session feeling triumphant. Did I think the magic of Paris also helped void the reality that lessons hardly ever go according to plan? Apparently so.
Let me rewind...
When I think of foreign language, I think of my middle school Spanish lessons teaching me the names of colors and how to talk about the weather. At first, that is the type of content I assumed I would be teaching in English, which I did before in Tanzania, no problem. Then, I realized all my students are adult volunteers pursuing the English language for various reasons, from business ventures to romantic relationships. Colors and weather patterns just simply won't cut it.
I finally decided to teach my first lesson on advertising. My students would consist of a few upper-intermediate language learners plus a couple of my peers. I felt like I could construct a lesson on advertising that would be interesting regardless of language level, while still providing insight into culture and vocabulary. The language arts teacher in me also thought I could incorporate adjectives and how they are used in promoting products. I found a few great examples that hit the nail on my objectives from Coca-cola, Butterfingers, and Samsung. I even had an extra activity ready explaining how to use comparative and superlative adjectives (-er, -est, more, and most). I used competitive ads to create relevance, such as a McDonald's ad that specifically discriminates against Burger King. I was happy with my content and planned on wrapping it up with the students creating their own advertisements. Voilà! I was actually excited to get in front of my new students!
This morning I went into class feeling confident and at ease, until lesson plan was thrown back into its drafting stages. My TEFL course leader suggested I make things a bit more challenging for my upper-intermediate students. He helped me add another mini-lesson on adverbs (words that describe adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) and changed my final "activate" lesson to a creative writing assignment that would be completed in groups. At first, I was bummed, because I loved my create-an-ad assignment, but I had to accept that this isn't my forte (yet) and I needed to put my trust in his hands!
Finally, 6pm rolled around and I took a deep breath to get started. Actually, I had time for many deep breaths because the French culture runs about 20 minutes behind schedule on a daily basis. At 6:20, I got everyone engaged and laughing at my "Sexy and I Know It" M&M commercial. Looking back, I wish I would have savored these first few minutes because it turns out they were the peak of my lesson. Despite the higher level of English fluency, the majority of my students had very little background on the parts of speech, even the Americans! This unexpected hiccup caught my entire lesson off guard and I still had 90 minutes to go. So, I threw an impromptu grammar lesson on the board to help both my French and American speakers survive the rest of lesson. The butterflies in my stomach were no longer flittering, but now playing a violent game of manhunt. My lack of experience with students older than 12 and the drastic change of direction in my plans left me feeling drab about my teaching quality. In the end, the one skill that really helped me get through the evening tear-free was my ability to differentiate. I've learned that this isn't a common skill across the globe and luckily as an American, I am able to keep my students moving at different paces so no one sits waiting for the others. Thank you, College of Education!
After what felt like hours, my lesson finally started winding down. I received a lot of praise and appreciation from my students, and my course leader admitted he overestimated some ability levels. However, as all teachers know, it is discouraging to walk away from a lesson feeling anything but successful, especially when the expectations were so high. As if I had stepped into a "Bridget Jones' Diary" film, I sulked home in the pouring rain, slowly at that because my sandals were slipping frantically under my feet. After climbing the four flights of stairs to my apartment in a saggy skirt and even saggier state of mind, I felt more relief than triumph as I sunk into the couch and opened my laptop.
After this elongated vent and a generous helping of French cookie spread paired with a couple glasses of wine, I am finally feeling more optimistic about my next lesson, which happens to be tomorrow. Maybe my blogpost bellowing of success isn't cancelled after all, but simply on hold for another day. Like we started with, nothing worthwhile is achieved in a day. If we never encountered failure, or a mere sense of deflation, what would drive us to improve ourselves?
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