Students and Such

October 16, 2009

After rather frequent updates, I seem to have left everyone out of the loop for a while. Blame it on suddenly missing internet routers in our apartment, business as we’ve really gotten into the swing of things here, and the simple fact that I didn’t want to make so many updates. Today is Friday, though, so it’s as good a time as any.

Students

I teach two classes, the same level and subject, which is Communication, level A. Communication classes focus on Speaking, Listening, and Reading, as well as Vocabulary. Level A is the lowest level, where students have esentially no English. However, that’s not strictly true. My first class has less English than my second class. A recurring problem for me has been the second class’s quickly plowing through all the activities I have planned, and having extra time at the end. Even when I have extra activities for them, they seem to get through them with ten minutes to spare.

Because we teach using the communicative method at Zirve, which involves game-like activities and group work, pair work, or what have you, our students have trouble taking things seriously. So in my second class especially, they always want to get out early, and even earlier than the ten minutes that we have when they finish everything. I absolutey refuse to let them out thirty minutes early, though. I might be willing to let them go ten minutes early occasionally, but the other is ridiculous.

To combat this, I’ve tried simply planning additional or harder activities, or multiple parts to the same activity, but still, ten minutes before time is officially up, they are usually done. They spend so much time pleading with me to let them go that they might as well stay the extra ten minutes to play another game, though. My co-worker Judy had a great idea though. Yesterday, since she’s been having the same problem, she told her students that if they could form the question correctly, they could leave. What they usually say is something like: “Teacher, finished? Go to home?” So Judy made them ask the question correctly before letting them go. I didn’t try that today, but I will next week.

Because there is the perception that our classes are a joke, I’ve begun to be stricter in general. Next week, I will start kicking people out if they aren’t prepared - meaning, they haven’t done their homework or they don’t have the books, etc. And that will count as an absence for them, of which they can only have five before it’s possible for them to be dismissed from the University. I should have started this week, but there have been problems having the right amount of books available for the students, pricing, and all sorts of what have you.

Such

So that’s life teaching Turkish students. In other news, it seems that every time we go out, we go to a new teahouse, each more wonderful than the last. There are some real hidden gems here, as per my last blog post. Last Sunday, one other teacher and I spent time with some of the students at Gaziantep University (NOT Zirve, so there is no conflict of interest), and went to a couple of different teahouses in the same night. In fact, we were out much later than we should have been with school the next morning. But the most interesting part of it was the diversity of the group. There was an Italian, a Spaniard, an Iraqi, two Americans, and four or so native Turks. It’s always amazing and interesting experience when abroad, meeting people from all over the world, not just the particular country where you happen to be.

Last couple of things: tonight, October 17th, we had a cookout, with a grill on the top floor. It was pretty good, and reminded us all of home, I think. Future plans include holiday parties for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. It should be fun. I’ll certainly let you know how it goes.