First Day Teaching

Today I became an English teacher. This is something I was planning to do after graduating college and getting a TEFL certificate. However, sometimes before you feel you are ready, you are asked to do something. So here I am in northern Myanmar teaching English to five young adult Bible students, and two groups of about twenty children at orphanages.

This morning's lesson at the Bible school was awkward, but full of laughter. No one knew just what I was supposed to do. The head of the program was not sure how good they are at English, and left everything up to me to evaluate their proficiency and come up with an hour and a half lesson. The students told me through their assistant who's English is the best that they wanted to work on their pronunciation, but could not tell me any words or sounds they especially needed help with. This was my first time teaching English, and I had zero direction. So I asked if they could answer some questions, like how old they were, and the assistant said yes, but no one did. Then she handed me a brand new blue dry erase marker and said I could write things on the board. So feeling rather desperate I turned to the board my mind racing wondering what I should write. I took the cap off the marker and stalled for time by carefully putting the cap on the end of the marker while looking at the empty stained white board. Then I wrote

"My name is Tatiana/Iana (they are calling me Iana because Tatiana is way too long and hard)
I am 22 years old (which surprised lots of them! I think they assumed I would be older than all of them)
I am from America (That one was already known, but I wanted to hear where they were all from)
I am a college student"

Then, thankfully, they went around the room and gave the same styled introduction with the first girl ending with "I am a Bible school" instead of "student", which got everyone laughing, and helped to break the ice.

After they finished their introductions, I was again faced with an hour and a half to fill, and no lesson plan, or even guidance beyond "They want to practice their pronunciation." At least now I knew from the introductions that they knew how to speak basic sentences. After what felt like an eternity, but was only a few minutes at most, what we decided on doing was using their English grammars as material. They read the simple sentences, and I listened and corrected their pronunciation. At first they were all speaking in a group and it was a little challenging to hear what they were really saying. Then they had fill in the blank exercises with sentences where they had to find the right word. For example one set of ten was filled in with doesn't/didn't/am not/haven't/hasn't. They all filled in the page, and then we read the sentences one at a time. I went first so that they no one was embarrassed if they had chosen the wrong word, and so that they could hear the correct pronunciation. Then they went one at a time with me correcting them. They all struggle with th, which is common, and I told them more than once that they needed to stick their toungs between their teeth so that they were saying this instead of dis. They seemed to be embarrassed of doing it and there was lots and giggling and hiding behind books while they tried to work it out to my satisfaction. I tried my best to balance kindness and understanding with being strict and truely helping them to improve.

Then in the afternoon I went to one orphanage and taught about fifteen kids. Their English was okay. They have some basic vocabulary and can speak simple sentences like "My name is ____". We sang some songs, learned the words of everything in sight, which they learned impressively fast!, and then they all said their favorite hobby, color, and animal. I had a hard time not falling over laughing when one of the older girls stood up to say her favorite color and instead of saying "My favorite color is yellow." she said in total seriousness "I am a banana." I am laughing again writing this. It is an understandable mistake, but for a girl of twelve to stand up, and not as a joke, say "I am a banana." is very amusing.

In the evening I worked with another group of kids who's English is not as good. Having everyone say their name and age at the beginning of class was a huge struggle. Only a few could say their age without the translator giving them the word. 

I have to go now!

Please be praying that I will do well as a teacher. That I will think of good things to teach the children. That they will remember their lessons. That I will connect with them not just as teacher, but as friend. Also, please pray for health! It's a challenge here.