Teaching Practicum

These past two weeks all of us Trainees had our Teaching Practicums, which means teaching English 3 hours a week in a local village school. Unfortunately, our local village school doesn’t actually have English classes (students learn German), so our poor students had to come after school for extra classes! But most of them seemed to have good attitudes and were eager to learn.

I taught a small class of ninth graders, and averaged about 4 students at each of my lessons (my largest class had 8 students and my smallest had 2!). But I enjoyed the small size, and got along great with the few students I had. During the first class I taught, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself! I didn’t necessarily expect to have such a great time, but I found I really liked teaching! So it was an encouraging start, considering that’s what I’m going to be doing for the next 2 years J.

I also found that, even though I’d never before taught in a classroom, my experience with Campus Life and even preparing intercession times in Norway helped me immensely with teaching. In some ways, teaching is really different, but the same basic skills of leadership, the ability to prepare and plan a meeting/lesson, flexibility, and speaking in front of a group are required. So I felt much more comfortable up in front of the class than I anticipated. And I think my comfort level—which also enables me to be more enthusiastic and have more fun—has a huge impact on the students and their response to me. So yay for God preparing me in unconventional ways! J

Some of you may be wondering how it’s possible to teach English when I don’t speak Kyrgyz (well). Good question! It was certainly a bit of an adventure. Even though I enjoyed the overall experience, I found not being able to explain things in Kyrgyz to be the most difficult and frustrating part. But generally, since the students didn’t know much English, I was able to teach things that I know in Kyrgyz. Lessons included greetings, personal information Q&A (How old are you? I am 25 years old…), numbers, and basic objects (What is this? This is a book.). At the end, I decided to try my hand at teaching some simple grammar, and threw in a lesson on personal and possessive pronouns. Overall, it went well, and when all else fails, charades is very helpful (no one is going to want to go against me in a charades match when I get home—Peace Corps Volunteers are champions at charades). I think teaching a language is fun (however difficult) because you can use a lot of games and other fun activities that might not be possible in, say, a biology class. And after 7 years of Campus Life, you know I’m a pro at games!

So there’s the Practicum experience in a nutshell. Sorry again for the lack of pictures... for some reason, this computer won't allow me to post any. It's all part of the Adventures in Kyrgyzstan! Next week: permanent site placement announcements!