Things I've said to my students on test day:
"If I tell you to shut up and you don't, I'm going to rip up your test and tell you to leave."
"Don't bother asking your friends for help; they don't know the answers."
"Stop talking! You're just giving him the wrong answers!"
"Please stop making my life harder."
Student: "Are you married?"
Me: "No."
Student: "Why not?"
Student: "Is that your real hair?"
Me: "Yes."
Student: "Can I touch it?"
Student, who has not bothered to show up for any class save the first: "You give us exam to look at?"
Me: "No!"
Student: "Why not??"
Me, to students talking during a test: "Stop cheating!"
Student: "But we were not talking about the test!"
My mind: (boggled)
Student: "I am not eating... I am on past for holiday."
Me: "Do you mean a fast?"
Student: "No, it is past."
Me: "You're confusing 'p' and 'f''; don't worry, a lot of Georgians do it."
Student: "Are you sure? I think it is past."
Student: "Putin is a mozerpucker."
Me: "If you're going to use that word, at least pronounce it correctly. Mo-TH-er-FU-ck-er."
Student: "T, U, V, W, SEX, Y, Z." (entire class giggles)
Me: (dies inside)
Showing posts with label the ministry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the ministry. Show all posts
Friday, 4 November 2011
Thursday, 15 September 2011
All the news that's fit to blog
Kristen,
I've been hoarding news. I don't have a lot of news, but I was waiting for most of it to come together so that I could write a blog post that was more than, "I think this might happen... or that... but I'm not sure when". (Those have been the answers to most questions posed to me about my future).
So it's official - I'm staying at the Ministry for the remainder of my contract. I'm conducting final exams this week, and then I'll have new classes. Ideally I'll be able to take the classes I have now and move with them up to the next level, but nothing has been decided so far. My Pre-Intermediates are especially keen on continuing with the program, as completion of the next level comes with a certificate. Also, they claim to like me - probably because I give them as much sass as they give me.
I've also been asked by three people to be their personal tutor. Two of them I know from my classes and they're very sweet, wonderful women who are enthusiastic and hard-working. They want to focus on conversation, so I hope our sessions will also include some cross-cultural exchange!
Speaking of cultural exchange, I finally moved in with a host family. They're an incredibly nice couple in their thirties with a 14-month-old daughter whose favourite things are laughing and running around. It's a little jarring to be out of the comfort zone of the American teachers I lived with, their apartment, their neighbourhood, and all that independence. But - true story - I've introduced myself to more than one person who exclaimed, "Oh, you're Squatter Ashley, aren't you?". So yeah, I needed a home.
Besides having a permanent home - and a room to myself, and a bed, and places to put my stuff - one of the advantages of a host family is being able to watch Georgian TV. My host father and I watch the news, and he explains the gist of the stories to me. The past two nights, the news was mostly whatever Misha did that day (kiss babies, deliver speeches in tight jeans, get mauled by star-struck Georgians), and a good 10 minutes on the fact that John Malkovich was in town, as a member of the theatre festival's jury. Who says you have to be at TIFF to see all the celebrities?
Also on the news was a story about the first day of school (inexplicably, today, a Thursday). The other members of my orientation group are now getting a taste of karma - after spending the past month on vacation (spectacular, life-changing, unforgettable vacation, sigh) they're now starting work in public schools across the country. So far I've heard that a kid tried to set something on fire in class. My students may give me sass, but they never start fires.
Speaking of my students, let's discuss a major cultural issue for English teachers here - cheating. Or rather, what we perceive, culturally, as cheating, but what Georgians see as "helping". During tests, students regularly ask questions of their peers, show each other their tests, work on problems together, etc. In the school systems that we English teachers come from, that's cheating. That's SUPER CHEATING, actually. But not here. It's normal. It's just helping. How no one has figured out that all they're doing is unknowingly sharing the wrong answers is beyond me. Marking tests gets really boring when everyone is making the same mistakes, down to the spelling errors. But what am I supposed to do? They're not children, the grades don't really matter, and they're there by choice. I certainly can't turn to a class full of police officers, counter-intelligence types and heads of divisions and say, "Now Georgians, everything you think about helping is wrong; please change immediately, you silly foreigners."
This cheating vs. helping dilemma created an interesting little bit of cultural sleight-of-hand performed by my awesome Georgian assistant and I. We decided it would be best if she not be in the room for the exams, because she would be harassed by the students for both translations and answers. As these people are her colleagues, she couldn't just say no to them - socially, this would be unacceptable and may come back to haunt her if she needs something from them in the future, i.e. "You didn't help me then, why should I help you now?". So I played the mean teacher and "banned" her from the exams. If asked, she could shrug and say, "I'd love to be there, but Ashley said no..."
(I admit, I kinda loved being that mean teacher... even though I'm absolutely no good at it).
I've been hoarding news. I don't have a lot of news, but I was waiting for most of it to come together so that I could write a blog post that was more than, "I think this might happen... or that... but I'm not sure when". (Those have been the answers to most questions posed to me about my future).
So it's official - I'm staying at the Ministry for the remainder of my contract. I'm conducting final exams this week, and then I'll have new classes. Ideally I'll be able to take the classes I have now and move with them up to the next level, but nothing has been decided so far. My Pre-Intermediates are especially keen on continuing with the program, as completion of the next level comes with a certificate. Also, they claim to like me - probably because I give them as much sass as they give me.
I've also been asked by three people to be their personal tutor. Two of them I know from my classes and they're very sweet, wonderful women who are enthusiastic and hard-working. They want to focus on conversation, so I hope our sessions will also include some cross-cultural exchange!
Speaking of cultural exchange, I finally moved in with a host family. They're an incredibly nice couple in their thirties with a 14-month-old daughter whose favourite things are laughing and running around. It's a little jarring to be out of the comfort zone of the American teachers I lived with, their apartment, their neighbourhood, and all that independence. But - true story - I've introduced myself to more than one person who exclaimed, "Oh, you're Squatter Ashley, aren't you?". So yeah, I needed a home.
Besides having a permanent home - and a room to myself, and a bed, and places to put my stuff - one of the advantages of a host family is being able to watch Georgian TV. My host father and I watch the news, and he explains the gist of the stories to me. The past two nights, the news was mostly whatever Misha did that day (kiss babies, deliver speeches in tight jeans, get mauled by star-struck Georgians), and a good 10 minutes on the fact that John Malkovich was in town, as a member of the theatre festival's jury. Who says you have to be at TIFF to see all the celebrities?
Also on the news was a story about the first day of school (inexplicably, today, a Thursday). The other members of my orientation group are now getting a taste of karma - after spending the past month on vacation (spectacular, life-changing, unforgettable vacation, sigh) they're now starting work in public schools across the country. So far I've heard that a kid tried to set something on fire in class. My students may give me sass, but they never start fires.
Speaking of my students, let's discuss a major cultural issue for English teachers here - cheating. Or rather, what we perceive, culturally, as cheating, but what Georgians see as "helping". During tests, students regularly ask questions of their peers, show each other their tests, work on problems together, etc. In the school systems that we English teachers come from, that's cheating. That's SUPER CHEATING, actually. But not here. It's normal. It's just helping. How no one has figured out that all they're doing is unknowingly sharing the wrong answers is beyond me. Marking tests gets really boring when everyone is making the same mistakes, down to the spelling errors. But what am I supposed to do? They're not children, the grades don't really matter, and they're there by choice. I certainly can't turn to a class full of police officers, counter-intelligence types and heads of divisions and say, "Now Georgians, everything you think about helping is wrong; please change immediately, you silly foreigners."
This cheating vs. helping dilemma created an interesting little bit of cultural sleight-of-hand performed by my awesome Georgian assistant and I. We decided it would be best if she not be in the room for the exams, because she would be harassed by the students for both translations and answers. As these people are her colleagues, she couldn't just say no to them - socially, this would be unacceptable and may come back to haunt her if she needs something from them in the future, i.e. "You didn't help me then, why should I help you now?". So I played the mean teacher and "banned" her from the exams. If asked, she could shrug and say, "I'd love to be there, but Ashley said no..."
(I admit, I kinda loved being that mean teacher... even though I'm absolutely no good at it).
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Wait, no, I mean Tbilisi
Hoo boy, Kristen. We have a lot to talk about.
As you read in my previous post, I was on the verge of moving to Telavi, meeting my host family, and then enjoying a month-long vacation. As of Wednesday night, that plan has been seriously altered.
On Wednesday, I was still at the orientation hotel. News came through that "one boy and one girl" were needed for month-long assignments teaching police officers, one in Tbilisi (me) and the other in the mountains near the Russian border. I volunteered immediately, not merely because I thought it would be fascinating, but because I'd originally been interested in teaching adults. Plus, as much as a month's "vacation" sounded nice, I did come to Georgia to work, and to contribute.
So on Thursday morning instead of being picked up by my host family, I was picked up by the police and taken to the new police academy compound in the west end of the city. There I was given a brief introduction to my new responsibilities, met my fantastic new American roommate, and shipped off the Soviet-style apartment we'll be sharing. My plans for Friday were to shadow her classes and prepare myself for my first day of work on Monday.
But at 8 o'clock on Thursday night I received a call asking if I could start Friday. I had no teaching experience, no books, and no clue. But I said yes, because that's what you have to do in Georgia - go with the flow, take opportunities as they come, and trust that the people around you will help you through. So yesterday I was taken to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where I taught four classes of three different ability levels. And I survived.
"Survived" is an entirely appropriate word in this context. Let me put this in perspective: When I woke up Friday morning I didn't know my address, my roommate's phone number, where I was working, who was driving me there, who my colleagues were, what I was teaching, how many classes I was teaching, to whom I would be teaching them, how I would get lunch, when my day started or ended, or even how I would get home. I'm a planner, an organizer; I'm a over-prepared Boy Scout. To be in the dark, to be out of control, to have to rely entirely on other people and to be OK with asking for help - this is so far outside my experience it might as well describe another person's life. But you know what? Everything turned out fine. I performed my duties well, I enjoyed myself, I made new friends, numerous people went out of their way to help me, and I didn't cry. Temporarily losing independence and control didn't cause me to self-destruct.
I have four more months of this fundamental challenge to my personality, including another upheaval in mid-September when I move to Telavi. But I'm proud of my (mostly) calm reaction to Friday, and I'm sure that I'll only grow more confident in my situation and my abilities. (I say mostly calm because I may have ended every sentence yesterday with "?!?" and a squeak).
That said, when I get back to North America, I'll probably double-down on being a control freak just to make up for letting go in Georgia. If any of you are late to a movie, so help me god...
As you read in my previous post, I was on the verge of moving to Telavi, meeting my host family, and then enjoying a month-long vacation. As of Wednesday night, that plan has been seriously altered.
On Wednesday, I was still at the orientation hotel. News came through that "one boy and one girl" were needed for month-long assignments teaching police officers, one in Tbilisi (me) and the other in the mountains near the Russian border. I volunteered immediately, not merely because I thought it would be fascinating, but because I'd originally been interested in teaching adults. Plus, as much as a month's "vacation" sounded nice, I did come to Georgia to work, and to contribute.
So on Thursday morning instead of being picked up by my host family, I was picked up by the police and taken to the new police academy compound in the west end of the city. There I was given a brief introduction to my new responsibilities, met my fantastic new American roommate, and shipped off the Soviet-style apartment we'll be sharing. My plans for Friday were to shadow her classes and prepare myself for my first day of work on Monday.
But at 8 o'clock on Thursday night I received a call asking if I could start Friday. I had no teaching experience, no books, and no clue. But I said yes, because that's what you have to do in Georgia - go with the flow, take opportunities as they come, and trust that the people around you will help you through. So yesterday I was taken to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where I taught four classes of three different ability levels. And I survived.
"Survived" is an entirely appropriate word in this context. Let me put this in perspective: When I woke up Friday morning I didn't know my address, my roommate's phone number, where I was working, who was driving me there, who my colleagues were, what I was teaching, how many classes I was teaching, to whom I would be teaching them, how I would get lunch, when my day started or ended, or even how I would get home. I'm a planner, an organizer; I'm a over-prepared Boy Scout. To be in the dark, to be out of control, to have to rely entirely on other people and to be OK with asking for help - this is so far outside my experience it might as well describe another person's life. But you know what? Everything turned out fine. I performed my duties well, I enjoyed myself, I made new friends, numerous people went out of their way to help me, and I didn't cry. Temporarily losing independence and control didn't cause me to self-destruct.
I have four more months of this fundamental challenge to my personality, including another upheaval in mid-September when I move to Telavi. But I'm proud of my (mostly) calm reaction to Friday, and I'm sure that I'll only grow more confident in my situation and my abilities. (I say mostly calm because I may have ended every sentence yesterday with "?!?" and a squeak).
That said, when I get back to North America, I'll probably double-down on being a control freak just to make up for letting go in Georgia. If any of you are late to a movie, so help me god...
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