After numerous blog posts over the last two months, it only just now hit me that I've prattled* on about Oktoberfest, Münster, Hamburg, Ireland, bikes, and more- but I haven't talked about my job at all!
(*prattle: to babble meaninglessly; to talk in an empty and idle matter... look at me using my GRE vocab words in my blog! Hopefully if you've been following my rambles though, you're not finding me to be prattling too much...)
So, my technical title is English Teaching Assistant. Pretty vague, right? Well, it's just as vague to the teachers at the school as it is to us teaching assistants. There are 140 Americans working for Fulbright as ETAs, and we're all scattered all over Germany, at every type of school in every type of demographic, so we're all having completely different experiences. The general consensus seems to be though, that all of us do as much as we want to do- it's up to us basically to take the initiative with the teachers if we desire a greater role in the classroom and in the lessons.
I've been in Münster for just over two months now, but two weeks of those were fall break and another week of that was a conference for all the FSAs, so I actually haven't been at the school that long, relatively speaking, and am only just now really starting to make my presence known and actually feel comfortable with presenting my ideas to teachers and asking for a bigger role in the classroom.
My classes now are a 6th grade class that I see for three lessons per week (one lesson is one hour at my school), an 8th grade class I see once per week, three different tenth grade classes I see one hour each per week, an 11th grade class I see once per week, and a 12th grade class I see twice per week. I had preconceived notions that 8th graders would be the worst, but actually the 8th graders are great! I think the 10th graders are the hardest to reach, because it seems that no matter what I talk to them about- they just return blank stares to me and seem as if learning English and about America is last on their list of things that interest them.
I enjoy my 11th grade class though, (they're the ones I went to the pub with), and a lot of them have international experience and have displayed a lot of interest in America (especially the election) and I've been able to facilitate discussions with them about real and current issues, and they always have a lot of questions for me. The 12th graders are rather boring, which is kind of surprising since they're in the Oberstufe class, which means they'll be taking their A-Levels this year, English being one of their subjects. I guess they just have a lot on their plate to worry about as the equivalent of high school seniors...although one of the boys is applying for this year of service in a group of remote islands in the Pacific directly after Gymnasium before he goes to Uni, so I corrected his application essay- it's actually moments like those that I like the most- is seeing this new generation of kids growing up and discovering their interests and desires and whatnot. I never thought 22 seemed too old, but when I had to do presentations on the American high school system and I had to sit down and think for a good half hour about my schedule when I was a sophomore in high school, I realized that it's been quite a while since I was in high school!
I'm also realizing just what a tough job teachers have. I'm really only half a teacher this year, but I'm getting a good taste of what it would be like and at least as of now, I'm fairly certain I want to go into teaching and I've started perusing some grad programs in my free time (which there is an abundance of!) As for the tough job though- teachers have to be completely engaged all day with changing groups of students all day, required to gauge the dynamic of every group; and then when the teaching is done for the day, they have to go home and grade papers and what I'm finding to be the most challenging part- thinking creatively to make engaging lesson plans! Next week is Thanksgiving and I told my 8th grade teacher that I'd like to do a lesson with the kids- something a tad more interesting than the story of the Pilgrims and Native Americans in their textbooks. He thought it was a great idea and responded with "Great idea!- What did you have in mind?!" *Blank face hits Sabrina* So now I've been perusing* and performing an exegesis* on the right-side of my brain (is the right side the creative side???)
(*peruse: to examine with great care; *exegesis: critical examination... not sure if I used either of those words quite correctly, but who cares. Not the GRE!)
Anyways yeah- just searching for that creativity I perhaps once had when I was in high school and younger, searching for some kind of interesting lesson plan. The same thing happened when I did a lesson on the election. I was going to hand out an article about the election and ask the students to talk about it, and then as I was just about to fall asleep the night before my lesson, my creative juices began to flow and I had the idea to hand out the text of a speech and have the students discern whether they thought it was by Romney or Obama. The majority of the class thought it was Obama, which was the point- but one bright kid found the key phrase that alluded to Romney and the GOP, in that he specifically mentioned something about having the most powerful military in the world. Other than that though, the speech honestly could've been by Obama- and that was my point- that in America, every candidate can sound the same because American politics is so theatrical and dramatic, as my 11th graders could not stop pointing out when we watched Obama's acceptance speech.
That's just one anecdote about the creativity required to be a teacher, and the one time I was really able to reach it and engage my students. All in time though! I mentioned that I see my 6th graders three times a week, and that was a decision that I basically made. This class will be the first bilingual class at the school, so beginning next year, this group will have half their classes in English and half in German. So, for 11 and 12 year olds, their English is quite impressive. And I absolutely adore them! After almost two months now, and seeing them a few times a week, I'm starting to get to know the students, and the teacher said they're starting to feel more comfortable with me and I talked with the teacher, and he said I could take a bigger role in that class, like team-teaching the lessons and doing some on my own, because he thinks it's a great opportunity for them, as the bilingual class, to be taught by a native speaker. So that's pretty exciting- and as 6th graders, they're just so excited to learn! And that's just great to see when you're standing at the front of the classroom.
All in all, things at school are on their way up and I'm learning to be more assertive in my role and in making sure that the teachers I work with know that I want to work. I didn't work my butt off all through college to be awarded a Fulbright just to sit around Germany and be bored. And as with any endeavor, I'm imparting knowledge but also gaining quite a surfeit* in the process- I've already done the whole middle school and high school thing, but being on the other side of it, especially up to ten years later than when I did it, teaches me new things every day!
(*surfeit: an overabundant supply; excess)
After this prolix* post, I'll leave off with a joke that one of my 10th graders made about the election today. (NB- it will probably only make sense if you have some basic understanding of German, or at least its prepositions)
(*prolix: long-winded, verbose)
"Before the election, it was Mit(t) Romney; now it's ohne Romney" (cue the laughs.)
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