Chapter 50: The Golden Anniversary Edition

nerd blog post #55

Chapter 50 already? Congratulations, dear readers, for making it this far..

Today is my day off. I had plans to go for a long bike ride, taking advantage of Cynthia being out of town to use her (much better) bike. But it's rainy, so instead I've been prepping for teaching..

Speaking of teaching, some people have been inquiring about the job itself. "Today I taught two classes" is what I often write, and then delve into my mini-adventures to wherever, and anecdotes about so-and-so. Do I do any prep work? What about grading? What, exactly, are they paying me for?

All good questions.. And so, if you're interested, here are some factoids. Yes, I do prep. None of my classes require a whole ton, but I definitely need to have something prepared for my classes. Hours of prep vary from week to week, but I'm continually thinking about the job, and what I can do to make my classes interesting and helpful. Every week is different.

In the conversation classes this week, for example, the students were to bring in French political cartoons. I brought in English ones. I taught them about cultural differences in humour, and had them work in pairs to present to the class a political cartoon in each language, explaining why it was funny, and how they were different. We discussed things like visual metaphors (ex. the democratic donkey) and caricatures. The level of English isn't particularly high, so new vocabulary is always a big thing, too. I often print off a sheet of vocab and a summary of what we'll be discussing, so they have an outline each class.

For every class each week, I bring in a short article, poem, prose etc. and have one person read it aloud. Then we talk briefly about it. These pieces are just to spark an interest in English literature or politics abroad, depending on the subject. With the UK so close, and American politics so popular here, I usually choose works by Canadians (woopwoop!) or from another part of the world, avoiding the States and the rest of Europe altogether. I use the same one for each of my classes.

Every other week, near the end, I have a short quiz in each class with candy prizes. It's supposed to be fun, about English speaking countries or the English language. I just started this a few weeks ago, and it's a hit.

As for marking, none of the students see any marks until the end of term. I spend time each week doing an ongoing evaluation, and I'm to hand in my marks at the end of term. The strange thing about this job is the lack of supervision I have. Since I started, no one has asked me what I've been teaching or how I'm doing.. I just go. Except for my pronunciation classes, there are no guidelines as to what is supposed to happen from week to week.

Perhaps my most interesting class is the creative writing class, which happens for two hours on Monday evening. I have four students, all upper years, and at an excellent level of English. Again, I had no idea what to do, really.. What I'm trying to achieve, though, besides a high level of written English and creativity, is an understanding of the English culture of writing. This is hard for me to articulate, but French and English writers naturally have a different style, based on their cultural differences. And so, even when their texts have been brought to a perfect level of English grammatically, they still lack the culture of writing that native English speakers can acheive.. To demonstrate this, we spend the first part of every class reading passages in English and in French, and then discussing them. Then there are themes that last for two weeks. Right now, they have selected a photo from their personal collection and are writing a short story based on it. We work on two stories a week, first correcting the English, then talking about the sense of the text, and finally the style. This week, I brought in a text that I had written in French, to try and demonstrate that since I'm not a French native, the style is not the same.. This theory is difficult to explain, but was easier for them to understand after having read what I had written.

The most prep of my week, though, is for the theatre group. This week, we're working on French scenes, so I spent the day going through a number of contemporary plays and pulling two-handers for them to work on tomorrow. I struggle with this group because of the varying level of theatre knowledge. They want to "act" but lack basic principles.. I have to ignore my desire to start at the beginning.. I teach some basic theories, but since it's a club, and they're there voluntarily, I have to keep it light and fun, and not assign much for them to do outside of the hours they're there.. That's hard for me. But I enjoy it.

And now, a wittle story.....

Twenty years ago today, big brother Adam and I were driven to a family friend's house in the capital city of Lesotho, Maseru, because Mama was gon' have a babay. We had overnight bags, not knowing how long her labour would be. The family we were staying at had a TV, so that was very exciting for Adam and I, since our family lived without electricity in a village about a half an hour from Maseru.

In the evening, we got a call from my parents. Adam talked to them. We were given the option to get picked up and see our new little brother (!) or to stay there for the night. In retrospect, I realize that it wasn't a choice at all. My parents assuuumed that we would jump at the chance to see what nine months of waiting would bring. They were wrong. Adam told them he was indifferent. I wanted to stay and watch TV. Instead, we were picked up and met the final of the trio, Ian Norman Hincks. I still wish I had stayed. TV rules. Juuuust joking!

And so, 75 points to Ian today! (You would have been awarded 100, but I love teens, and you are now 20. That means a 25 point reduction.) Happy, happy birthday!

And to the rest of you, a very merry un-birthday.

With love,
Hincks.