Work
My work has become routine enough for me to usually think it's not blog-worthy. But since most of my time is really spent working, it's worth a summary.
My main work is still at school number three. I only teach four lessons a week of pure English: two hours to tenth grade, and two hours to sixth grade. I teach the sixth graders together with two local teachers, which has been really rewarding, because they get to see the positive results of communicative teaching. I tried to team-teach last year, but it didn't work; I basically just became a substitute teacher. This year, it has worked because I made it a rule that if they're not there, I won't be, either. Once the other teacher left in the middle of a lesson. I follwed her and told her that I wouldn't teach the class if she wasn't in the room. That having been said, now that we actually plan and teach together, they're both very enthusiastic, fun, and fast-learning.
Most of my lessons are taken up by teaching the math-in-English experimental program in the seventh and eighth grades. I divide the classes into two, and teach each of the four resulting groups four hours a week, for a total of sixteen hours. I write my own textbook for these classes, which I will be able to leave behind me when I go. Next semester, I'll teach half the seventh graders' math hours in addition to the English lessons. The government has not given the eighth grade hours for the experimental program, so I simply teach "extra" classes. Because the eighth graders also have their full regimen of math hours in Kazakh, I can be free with the syllabus, spending time on what I think is important. For example, we spent two weeks on the Pythagorean Theorem, rather than the four hours allotted by the Kazakh program.
At school number three, I also have three "office hours" a week, where students can come talk with me in the cafeteria, help with the English-language debate team, teach two classes a week to olympiad students, and play an instrumental role in the English Teachers' Association, which meets once a month.
Much of the rest of my work is through or for Globus, the local resource center. This year, Bryan and I have worked with the head of the center to make the center more independent and businesslike. We now keep and regularly review a budget, have regular meetings with minutes, assign ownership of tasks (which are reviewed weekly, so things get done), and keep track of all our finances and book lending with a database program I wrote. Globus, which was previously dependent on grants and volunteer support, now supports a full-time secretary, has allowed the head to quit her job at the university and work full-time at Globus making the same salary as before, and still makes a profit of several hundred dollars a month. This was my goal for the fall semester. I have two major projects remaining at Globus to finish before I leave. First, we now have a high-speed internet connection that I want to make into an internet cafe. (All four of the computers are now connected to the internet, allowing Bryan to teach internet classes to his students, but we monitor traffic and calculate the cost by hand, which won't do when Bryan and I aren't there to supervise.) Also, next semester, Globus will finally begin to use local volunteers to help teach classes, learn how to do the clerical work, and execute special projects. It is my second goal to have a core of local volunteers supporting Globus by the time we leave.
At Globus I teach three clubs a week. The first is a math club, which is very popular (usually about twelve students come), but not really fulfilling my objective, which is to try to find and train a teacher to replace my in the math program as school number three. Almost all the members of math club are high schoolers. Regardless, it's a lot of fun, and a few that came hating math have now told me that I changed their minds. The second is a music club, which although of questionable English education value, is a lot of fun. Once a week, I play the guitar and we sing American songs together. That's it. This is also a very goofy and popular club. Finally, I have a literature club where we read 10-15 page excerpts from modern English-language authors (we've read The Onion, Tom Bissel, Claude Brown, David Sedaris, and excerpts from McSweeny's so far). This started out popular becuase it sounds like a "real" English lesson, but lately only five to seven people have been coming, and none of them are the university students I intended the club for. However, the people who do come are really into it, and I enjoy leading their discussions more than any other classes I teach.
Besides this, I have other side projects, like compiling some advanced Kazakh grammar materials into an English language book that future Kazakh learners can use, co-editing PC Kazakhstan's newsletter, the Vesti, and applying to grad schools, which I have found to be a hefty task.
So whatever I write in my blog, you can bet that the above comprises 90% of my day. Now, back to the regular programming.
My main work is still at school number three. I only teach four lessons a week of pure English: two hours to tenth grade, and two hours to sixth grade. I teach the sixth graders together with two local teachers, which has been really rewarding, because they get to see the positive results of communicative teaching. I tried to team-teach last year, but it didn't work; I basically just became a substitute teacher. This year, it has worked because I made it a rule that if they're not there, I won't be, either. Once the other teacher left in the middle of a lesson. I follwed her and told her that I wouldn't teach the class if she wasn't in the room. That having been said, now that we actually plan and teach together, they're both very enthusiastic, fun, and fast-learning.
Most of my lessons are taken up by teaching the math-in-English experimental program in the seventh and eighth grades. I divide the classes into two, and teach each of the four resulting groups four hours a week, for a total of sixteen hours. I write my own textbook for these classes, which I will be able to leave behind me when I go. Next semester, I'll teach half the seventh graders' math hours in addition to the English lessons. The government has not given the eighth grade hours for the experimental program, so I simply teach "extra" classes. Because the eighth graders also have their full regimen of math hours in Kazakh, I can be free with the syllabus, spending time on what I think is important. For example, we spent two weeks on the Pythagorean Theorem, rather than the four hours allotted by the Kazakh program.
At school number three, I also have three "office hours" a week, where students can come talk with me in the cafeteria, help with the English-language debate team, teach two classes a week to olympiad students, and play an instrumental role in the English Teachers' Association, which meets once a month.
Much of the rest of my work is through or for Globus, the local resource center. This year, Bryan and I have worked with the head of the center to make the center more independent and businesslike. We now keep and regularly review a budget, have regular meetings with minutes, assign ownership of tasks (which are reviewed weekly, so things get done), and keep track of all our finances and book lending with a database program I wrote. Globus, which was previously dependent on grants and volunteer support, now supports a full-time secretary, has allowed the head to quit her job at the university and work full-time at Globus making the same salary as before, and still makes a profit of several hundred dollars a month. This was my goal for the fall semester. I have two major projects remaining at Globus to finish before I leave. First, we now have a high-speed internet connection that I want to make into an internet cafe. (All four of the computers are now connected to the internet, allowing Bryan to teach internet classes to his students, but we monitor traffic and calculate the cost by hand, which won't do when Bryan and I aren't there to supervise.) Also, next semester, Globus will finally begin to use local volunteers to help teach classes, learn how to do the clerical work, and execute special projects. It is my second goal to have a core of local volunteers supporting Globus by the time we leave.
At Globus I teach three clubs a week. The first is a math club, which is very popular (usually about twelve students come), but not really fulfilling my objective, which is to try to find and train a teacher to replace my in the math program as school number three. Almost all the members of math club are high schoolers. Regardless, it's a lot of fun, and a few that came hating math have now told me that I changed their minds. The second is a music club, which although of questionable English education value, is a lot of fun. Once a week, I play the guitar and we sing American songs together. That's it. This is also a very goofy and popular club. Finally, I have a literature club where we read 10-15 page excerpts from modern English-language authors (we've read The Onion, Tom Bissel, Claude Brown, David Sedaris, and excerpts from McSweeny's so far). This started out popular becuase it sounds like a "real" English lesson, but lately only five to seven people have been coming, and none of them are the university students I intended the club for. However, the people who do come are really into it, and I enjoy leading their discussions more than any other classes I teach.
Besides this, I have other side projects, like compiling some advanced Kazakh grammar materials into an English language book that future Kazakh learners can use, co-editing PC Kazakhstan's newsletter, the Vesti, and applying to grad schools, which I have found to be a hefty task.
So whatever I write in my blog, you can bet that the above comprises 90% of my day. Now, back to the regular programming.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home