Administrative Nightmares

I haven’t updated this side of my blog in ages, not for lack of interest or things to say but rather because my teaching this semester has been composed of more time dealing with administrative crap than anything else. 

I have lost 18 hours of contact time because the University is doing some kind of maintenance or something that requires the power to be shut off for the entire university.  On four different Saturdays.  One of them we were able to squeak through but the rest are time lost. 

And so, I am in the unfortunate position of missing way too many classes, losing steam, focus and drive and having to find places to teach.  My mantra this semester has been “I am a lowly instructor.  I am not an administrator.  I have no power.  I want no power.  I can’t fix it.” It has been chanted non-stop as students ask me how to drop, how to get funding for the course, how to add the course, how to repeat it, how to undo it, why can’t I just un-enroll them… 

Or, when I’m called for updates on course scheduling.

 Or, when the registrar wants to confirm who has GTA and who does not of my students.

 Or, when I am faced, over and again with the issue of space and room to teach.

Or when I’m asked why they don’t teach a separate course for conversational English  or track students by proficiency levels. 

 Or when I’m asked why the course is expensive.

 Or pretty much anytime anyone talks to me these days.

So, I’m forced to keep teaching through December although classes will be over in November.  And I’m forced to take time before finals to teach as well.  Nevermind the fact that I will have to find a room to teach in. 

The students have been great and we’ve done some great work, but I have to admit, I’m feeling like I’m heading for a burnout semester. 

Just give me a room to teach, current to power the lights (a fan would be nice but I can do without), and an open bathroom.  I’ll buy my own chalk.

Add to the administrative crap the resulting loss in motivation and morale.   I left class one Saturday because I had one student in class by 9:30 and class starts at 9:00. He and I decided to take off. And we did.  Today I had students show up over an hour late but I feel too downtrodden to fix it.  Isn’t that sad?  They haven’t been doing their work and with three weeks between classes I don’t blame them!  Nevermind the fact that the registration process was evil and people have been confused as to their enrollment status throughout the semester.

 I have met four new students in the last week, all asking for me to certify their non-attendance.  One more administrative thing to deal with.

I have learned a lot this semester but not exactly what I wanted to know. I learned about miscommunication between departments and offices, I learned about nonsensical back and forth bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and about making do.  A lot about that.  Not my dream semester, but nonetheless productive in its own right.

Administrative matters

I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like about everything going on with my class. I’ve had a lot of successful activities which I’ll hopefully detail later, but right now, I need to vent about the dark side of teaching: THE SYSTEM.

On Saturday I had about half (or more) of my students leave class. Why? Was it something I said? Morning breath? What?

Well, to make a long story confusing, what happened was:

This course is offered by my Department, the Dept of English, and the students are recruited for the course by the Office of Services to International Students. These students are Graduate Students so the Graduate Studies Program has a say as well. And, the ever-powerful Registrar.

Students were signed up on ‘a list’ by International. Then, by some magical process I’m not really knowledgeable about, they were registered by someone (my Dept, International, whatever, anyone but me). Somehow in this process the information was given to students that the course was Free and that it was no credit. Well, unfortunately the University is a business and as such, it frowns upon departments paying expensive professionals to do work that goes unreported for Free. The course has 1 credit value and is, hence, not free.

Now, students who do not have the tuition exemption that comes with Graduate Assistantships, have to fork out the cash or drop out. Most of them (us) don’t have the money to pay therefore I lost most of my class on Saturday. Particularly broke International students who are mostly making personal and financial sacrifices to be able to complete their degrees.

Today, I will be teaching but will I have any students left??

I nearly cried when the students left on Saturday. If it were up to me, I would set up shop under a tree (with a multimedia projection system, surround sound audio and whiteboards but nonetheless under a tree). I would teach whoever wanted to learn any of the stuff I know. No sweat. But. It doesn’t work that way, especially because learning a language requires ongoing work. And because I have bills to pay. That’s just the way it goes.

Tonight I am terrified that I will be walking in to a classroom that will remain empty. And I’m heartbroken.

Blame is not the issue but this is nonetheless a torturous position for me as instructor, an unfair process for students and a prime example of a major communication gap between departments.

I am optimistic and excited to try some cool lessons tonight. Hopefully I won’t be alone.

Technical Writing and Conversational English

…and all in one activity!

I have been going crazy trying to find activities and ideas to try and meet students at vastly different proficiency levels. This activity I adapted credits John Middlesworth but I’ve been slacking and I didn’t identify the website so, my apologies for the incomplete info.

I used this activity with my class on Mondays and Wednesdays which is overall a slightly higher proficiency class than Saturdays.

With students in groups, hand out sets of legos (or other linking blocks). I used biggish sets because my students are grad students, but the activity can be completed with fewer blocks for younger students.

Students are then asked to build a figure which either resembles some object or has a function they can explain. They have to agree on the design and description. Then, they have to write out instructions.

I put up some key words to guide them and gave some prepositional guidance. I also circulated among the groups and provided vocabulary and/or guidance or nagging to use English in the discussions.

My students are mainly Engineering and Science students. So, this activity was particularly fun for them. Usually I favor linguistic creativity (write a story) but this seemed to fit much better.

After the instructions have been written–a long process for my students but we really took our time to perfect the exercise– then you distribute the set of legos and instructions to another group and ask them to build the figure and describe its function.

Finally the groups get to see the result of their instructions and laugh.

We discussed the activity in the context of technical writing, which they are all doing for their theses. We also discussed writing lab instructions and other similar writing situations.

Honestly, I thought the activity would be a little lame but I was willing to try. Students seemed to really love it. And the discussion of the relevance was very animated and engaged. So, this is a cool new addition to my repertoire of silly teaching ideas!

Students built a dog, a robot, a lunar rover, a rocket and a multimedia projection system. Don’t ask!

Enjoy! And let me know if you try it out. How did it work for you?

Live Journal

I’m trying an experiment, well okay, this whole class is an adventure so this is one of many ‘experiments’.

I am using LiveJournal as an online platform for writing assignments. I know I could use Webct but, well, I’m lazy and livejournal is easier to set up because each user sets up their own options and then posts to a community. I also like that it’s a real forum and not an artifical classroom. Of course it’s still a controlled situation, with closed membership and all that, but it is still less stuffy.

Of course, this means I am spending a lot of time setting this stuff up initially. I just killed an hour setting up a mailing list, moderating invites and waiting for stuff to load. Hopefully, once everyone is in and settled, I’ll only need to read and enjoy and comment! That’s the theory. We’ll see.

Tonight is the first meeting of the Monday/Wednesday section and I’m looking forward to it. And dreading it. Any chance this one section will actually be looking only for academic English and have their svo all in order? Ah well. I’ve always liked challenges.

Overwhelming is an Understatement

I’ve survived the first meeting, but I’m not sure I will survive the semester.

I began the class going over business in Spanish, although I usually use English almost exclusively. I started in Spanish because when I had students fill out cards with their information I asked them to rate their own skills in Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Writing in English on a scale of 1-10. I saw mostly scores under 5 for listening (numerous 1-s!) and wanted to make sure I would be understood. I was talking about the course objectives which, as stated in the course propopsal, are nothing short of Miracles. So, I explained that our job is to achieve this miracle together this semester.
Well, I only realized later how much of a miracle this will be.

I gave a diagnostic test. I wrote the test to guide me in selecting materials and activities.

Students were asked to write two short essays. For the first one, students could choose one option:
1. Provide a brief autobiographical essay where you highlight your academic or professional experiences.
2. Describe a research project you are involved with or have been involved with recently.
3. What made you choose your area of study?

For the second one, they were asked to describe an event, person, or place.

Oral practice was a dictation that included words we had targeted during our pronunciation and articulatory practice before the test.

A section on comprehension had a short article from the bbc on health issues and some higher level questions.

The last part was an oral exercise where I did a brief (unstructured) interview with each individual student.

Some students cannot write a sentence in English.

Many (I’m almost tempted to say most) students were unable to understand the statement “Why do you want to learn English?”

Many students could not answer questions about a little bbc article off the website.

Very few students actually wrote semantic/syntactic sentences.

All of them are desperate to learn.

I have no idea how I am going to do this. This course is supposed to be in academic English (hence the long ass, relatively intense diagnostic). Unfortunately, it is difficult to learn ACADEMIC English if a question like “What do you like about your country?” is unintelligible even when articulated in clear teacher-speak. Perhaps we should learn “my name is” regular Basic English first. Meanwhile there are about 4-5 students who are at the level to learn academic English. Help! The miracle being requested is ENORMOUS.

Meanwhile, these students are taking courses in English in their Master’s programs. They are spending hours studying and trying to read materials in English in order to keep up. I can’t even fathom how frustrating it must be to be in that situation of desperately wanting to learn English, yet finding that courses are unavailable to you. Wow.

I need to radically redefine my objectives and my approaches. I am not quite sure how I’m going to do this. But, I’m excited to try and I have a very motivated and intelligent group of students so, I am that much closer to being Saint Thea.

We’ll see what awaits me in Monday’s section!

Great Expectations

One of the things I enjoy about teaching is the variations, the unexpected results of a mix of life experiences, personalities, interests, and priorities all thrown into a class together. This course I will be teaching is richer than usual in the expectations department for numerous reasons.

1. I am not teaching a core/required course. I don’t have the certainty of having a somewhat predictable room full of sophomore intermediate track students. I am teaching, from what I understand, mostly or entirely graduate students from multiple faculties. I’ve been led to expect a fair number of Engineering students but I know little beyond that.

2. This is related to #1 but deserves its own number. I have no idea, no really NO IDEA what proficiency level my students will be. I have no idea how experienced they are with formal English language instruction. I have absolutely no clue what I’ll be working with, which makes prepping the course in advance essentially impossible.

3. There is no clearly established curriculum. In fact, the course is actually a temporary one. There is talk of making it permanent and possibly even a requirement. I won’t get into that. All I know is that I know very little. This is useful and convenient but also a bit intimidating as I don’t have much of a road map. I have a colleague who taught the course last semester who has shared resources and experience with me. For that I am very thankful.

4. I’m teaching for 6 hours on Saturday. 6 hours. That’s a lot! LOL Especially for the first class. I think what I will do is to see if we can shorten class to 3 hours and make up for it with an extra Saturday tacked on to the end of the course to make sure we get our contact hours in.
I’m very excited to have enough time to meet the objectives of having a mixture of conference, discussion and workshop. This will allow me to use the language lab (which, don’t tell, but I don’t know how to use yet!) and try different instructional media as well as really get an immersion feel going. It will also be demanding of my energy and focus. (And blood sugar!)

5. I have HUGE classes for what I’m doing. I have 30 students in one section and 26 in the other. That’s really too much! I would be much happier with half, or even capping at 20. The way the course is designed there are supposed to be additional instructors for individualizing. But, of course, the budget reigns supreme.

6. Intrinsic motivation will be an enormous asset. Precisely because the course is not required, I have a self-selected, highly motivated group of people. That is exciting!

So, for my first class I hope to give a diagnostic test to figure out where people are at in terms of proficiency. (Don’t ask me if I have an instrument please!) I also intend to do some team building and ice breakin’. Finally, I plan to start with work on pronunciation. More on that later.

For now I have work to do and greatness to expect!

Welcome!

This semester will be my first time teaching English for International Students. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity I have to structure a course according to student needs. I am also aware that a phenomenal workload awaits me as I have not taught this course before and will be piecing everything together as I go. This blog will be a place for me to post activities, reflections and experiments as I go.

Someday I may go on to write a counterpart to Fulgham’s books: “Everything I need to know I learned by teaching” but in the meanwhile, I’ll use this space.

Comments, as usual, are welcome and encouraged.

Please visit my general blog if you haven’t at Bochinche Bilingüe