Somehow it's already the middle of the second semester. Next week I give my mid-term and then jet away on vacation (Portugal!!!) and I wonder how it's already this point in the year.
This second semester I've been teaching only 9 hours per week. My duties are divided between two courses this time: Written Language Practice for the first-years (L1s) and Oral Language Practice for the second-years (L2s). The two courses couldn't be much more different from one another, but I'm mostly just thankful to not be doing phonetics anymore.
The course with the L1s is basically an introduction to Business English and to business concepts in English. I feel 99% unqualified to teach the course, aside from the little fact that I happen to be a native speaker of English. But even that doesn't help on most days. Fortunately the students don't have to master a whole lot of content with me. I simply have to present it to them and start to familiarize them with the discipline and the language attached to it. Language aside, I've probably learned just as much as they have. In theory, they're there because they're interested in the business world or hope to have a job in it one day. But from what I can tell, they don't really have a clue. Not that I blame them, they are only 18 or so after all and have never done anything in their lives.
For the most part, they're really good groups of students. Two groups are really exceptional and I love working with them. The other two are usually fine, but just tend to get rather rowdy, which makes explaining the difference between a branch, an agency, and a subsidiary kind of challenging.
My time with the L2s, however, has been very eye-opening. From day one, they have proven to be miles ahead of their first-year counterparts. Not only in language skills (the difference is drastic!) but in maturity level and in their roles as students. The L2s are respectful, hard-working, dedicated and (gasp!) most of them love to participate!
Their course is focused on oral skills. My job is really easy; I just have to make them speak. (Well, usually it's really easy. I do have two classes who are particularly quiet, save for a couple of individuals.) They have listening activities to do each week - interviews to listen to online and questions to answer - based around a particular theme, and then in class we simply have a discussion about the topic. This semester we've chatted about internet addictions, the starting and spreading of trends, workplace surveillance, the role of the Red Cross in war zones and a TV ratings system to help parents monitor content. These are discussion-provoking topics that usual incite some really good class conversations. It's a really interesting way to get to know my students, both personally and as small groups. I'm a little bit disappointed that the discussion part of the semester has ended. Now I'll spend the remaining weeks listening to group presentations done by the students. I'm sure that'll be fun in its own way, but different.
And for the L1s... Now I teach them how to write business letters... Maybe that's slightly closer to my zone of competencies!?
No comments:
Post a Comment