First Week at Comrat State

September 14, 2009

Now that I’m starting on my second week of teaching, I think it will be a good idea to recap the first week.

The first couple of days at the university were somewhat frustrating because my schedule still hadn’t been determined. In the former Soviet Union, classes technically start on September 1st, but in reality the first week or two is a staging process where all the logistics get worked out. Students here learn in groups. For example, all students with a concentration in Moldovan language and English language who entered the university in 2007 study together. They have basically every class together for their entire university career. Students don’t really get to choose their classes: each year they follow the course schedule laid down by the university. Each group has a unique schedule. At the beginning of the year, the university administration (in our case, our intrepid secretary Lyudmila) puts together a schedule for every group--without the help of a computer to coordinate all the different schedules. It is really a gargantuan task.

So, I spent the first couple of days sitting around the university and getting acquainted with the other professors and the American Center. There is a very nice room with several full bookshelves, a giant American flag, posters, maps, and a television. (Tragically, the DVD player doesn’t work, so the TV is useless to me.) Quite a few of the resources have been donated by the U.S. Embassy and USAID. Others are from book donation programs. I was excited to see so many great resources. Once I got my temporary schedule, I spent many hours pouring through the books to see what resources I can pull together for each class.

Here’s my schedule:

Wednesday

1st and 2nd period: American Culture and Civilization

3rd period: American Children’s Literature

Thursday

3rd period: American Folklore and Mythology

4th period: British Literature

Friday

2nd period: Literary Text Analysis

3rd period: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

Each period is an hour and twenty minutes long. As you can see, they actually have me teaching content-based English instead of the usual grammar and conversation classes. In some cases this is quite interesting, in other cases, I have to scrounge around for material. My overall problem is how to use the subject material as a vehicle for the development of better English skills.

Another issue: here, they organize all classes in a lecture-seminar format, which I don’t like at all. First of all, this is the humanities, not science or math! Secondly, the whole idea of having a language class where students simply listen to a lecture goes against the entirety of modern language pedagogy. Thankfully, I’ve been given a tacit go-ahead to eschew this format when it doesn’t work for me.

Wednesday’s classes were fairly interesting. I had a basic getting-to-know-you routine for each class this week. We took attendance (and explained what the word attendance means) and read the syllabus. Teachers here don’t give out syllabi, so I had to explain to students that, yes, they can actually keep it. Next, I had the students introduce each other, a tip I got from Natalia, another English professor here. Finally, I played a game where I introduced myself without actually having to talk very much. I had students write four or five questions they’d like to ask me. Then I had them go in pairs and ask the questions. The catch: they had to ask them to each other. One student would ask a question like “Where is our teacher from?” and the other would have to guess where I am from! I found it on an ESL website and it worked very well. The best part is that it gets students laughing and talking, instead of listening to me. The goal of the lessons was to set an active tone for the students and to get a bead on how well each group spoke English.

For Wednesday, I also prepared a lecture and activity combination on American geography and regions. The students listened to me talk, but they also did a map activity in groups and looked at pictures of America. To conclude, we watched a video of “This Land is Your Land” from YouTube with subtitles and cheesy pictures of America. It was entertaining for me, at the very least!

The range of the students is very wide. I have two groups of local students who are in their fifth and final year at the university. Both groups are active and fun and speak English well. They simply need more practice speaking. American Culture and Civ and Literary Text Analysis are the classes I have with the older groups.

I have two groups who are in their first or second year of learning English. These groups are a big challenge. They are still shaky on the basics of English and I am supposed to be teaching them content! It is a bit frustrating because no matter how much I slow down, the students don’t seem to understand me that well. Plus, they are more shy and hesitant to speak in class, which can make speaking activities like pulling teeth. When asked to speak in front of the class, a particularly shy girl actually crossed herself! These two classes are American Folklore and Mythology and Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing.

Finally, I have two groups of students from Turkey who come here specifically to study at this university. The language here, Gagauzian, is on the same branch of Turkic languages as Turkish and Azeri. Students can get by here when they arrive, and then they study English and Russian. These students have absolutely no problem with participating in class. The main struggle I have here is the fact that although they have great conversational English, they spend half the lesson talking to each other in Turkish. At this level, the class should really be English-only. The other issue is that they are all the same age as me or older, so I have to remember to be authoritative! These two classes are American Children’s Literature and British Literature.

Well, these are the main groups that I am working with. I’m also starting an English Conversational Club this week, so we’ll see how that goes. I’d like to watch movies and TV shows and practice discussing all sorts of topics. I think this could be the most fun of all!

Sorry for the rather dry entry, but I figured it was best to explain everything I was doing here so that future entries make sense. I promise I have many anecdotes to tell in the future!