So, that might be a bit of an exaggeration... But for a moment, that's exactly what it felt like. And I thought Monday was bad!
I won't go over the whole night again, mostly because I'd prefer to not relive it, but I will say that I am incredibly proud of how I handled it. I didn't melt down, cry, protest, get angry, or any number of other things I felt. There was one student who clearly needed to vent, and so I let her. I then told the class that, for better or worse, I was also still learning as a teacher - and that I probably wouldn't do things the same way the next time. I'll certainly be taking a much closer look at the homework I assign from now on.
The issue tonight was different than Monday - in the Wednesday class, the issue is that the majority of the class is just learning a bit of Italian in order to travel to Italy. To them, conjugating verbs seems like an unnecessary annoyance. I completely understand that. And yet I can't help but feel like if all they want is a few travel phrases that they'd be better served by a phrasebook and a good pronunciation guide. But maybe that's just me.
I actually think the community would be well-served by a class for "Travel Italian," but I'm not interested in teaching it. Maybe someone will do it eventually. Until then, I'll keep trying to learn from my mistakes (plentiful as they are), and keep plugging along.
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3 comments:
I think you should remind them that when traveling the Italian with whom you are speaking is not going to use a phrase book word. So, if you ask your perfectly phrased question in Italian, you are not necessarily going to get a perfectly phrased response. So, if you ask, 'Dove il bango?'.. the person may respond with 'It is behind the bar' or 'You (singular) may find it behind the bar' or 'You (plural) may find it behind the bar' or 'We don't have a public restroom'... all using different verb conjugations that you will need to be able to recongnize.... take it from a fellow traveler.
Well, at least they didn't start chanting "We're the teacher, we're the teacher, we're the teacher!"
;-)
Do they want to learn a language, or do they want to be human parrots?
Bwa ha ha ha! I'd forgotten about that entirely, Miss B, and you're right - at least I didn't get that. If you don't mind, would you make a copy of that video and send it out to me? You know, for, um, research purposes? Oh, and comic relief!! :D
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