I Don't Know That I Could Ever Teach, But Shop I Could Do Anywhere, Anytime!

This past week at school was fairly uneventful. Our first Arabic tests were graded and handed back to us, and I took my first Colloquial Arabic test and a midterm in my Intro to Development class. Overall, I think I'm doing OK. The Arabic tests here are harder than they are at home, but I think that's a good thing. This week, I have a midterm in my Comparative Politics of the Middle East class. I'm hoping it won't be too terrible because I also have my next Arabic test on the same day. After getting through this week, I'm pretty much done with tests and assignments until my term papers are due (one is due in mid-November, one is due in December, and one is due on a sort of influx date that no one is really sure about...T.I.E...if you've been reading you know what that means) and my final exams begin (in the second/third week of December. This week I will also be starting the other part of my internship with Nahdet El-Mahrousa, with the CEDO. I will explain more about it on my internship blog after I have my first day on Tuesday. It's going to be a busy week, but it's followed by Halloween (which I may or may not have a morning make-up class on; it would be for the same class that has arbitrary due dates, so it's not something I'm overly stressed about). Halloween is more celebrated here than I would have expected, which is a good thing. There's apparently an American Embassy party and a few other parties going on. I think it will be fun to dress up and have an American holiday. I just have to make it through the week first!

The most challenging part of my week last week, even all tests considered, I think was teaching English for the third time on Monday night. We had nine students this week! It doesn't sound like a lot, but considering we've only ever had three and four before, it was definitely something new. We had been operating on a kind of individual attention sort of basis, which I thought was working well, but it's next to impossible to do that when there's three teachers and nine students. I know it doesn't sound that hard, but it's definitely one of those things that is easier said than done. We decided to start by reading from "Matilda." We figured we could assess everyone's level this way because although they're all technically at the same level, there's differences in their abilities. We read for about an hour, and it seemed like everyone was understanding, at least to some degree. We would stop every once in a while and check to make sure everyone knew what was going on in the story.

It's a fun story to read, but there's parts of it that make it difficult to teach with. Roald Dahl, the author, is British, so there's some British slang in the book, "telly" instead of "television" for example that makes it tough to explain. It's also written in a different way than we, as Americans, are used to speaking. This is not really noticeable when you simply read the book, but when you are trying to teach it or teach through it, you pick up on things like, 'I would have never phrased that that way.' Also, a lot of slang, not necessarily British slang, is used. Annoying children are described as 'scabs,' 'grubs,' and 'blisters.' These words are tough to explain as it is, but to explain them in the context Dahl is using them adds even a more difficult element to teaching.

We were ready to move on after an hour, but one student asked about the meaning of a word that he had underlined in his text. This was a watershed event, as then everyone began to ask about every word that they did not understand. So we spent over a half hour walking around the room defining words for everyone, which looking back on it, was a good thing to do. We hadn't even though that they would have so many questions simply about word meaning. It was a difficult thing to do. Having to define words forces you to think differently, especially when the people you are working with have a somewhat limited vocabulary as it is. It was challenging, but I actually liked doing it. It also led us to the conclusion that we need to approach the story differently. For example, we are going to go through the chapters we're planning to read each week and make vocab lists. A dictionary should be able to define things better than I can, especially thinking on my feet, and I also think this will save a lot of time.

After we finished going over words, we started with the grammar lesson. We were doing prepositional phrases. In and of themselves, they're not difficult, however there was more trouble with them than we anticipated. We started with a list of prepositions. They get prepositions and they can identify them in sentences. It was the phrases that gave them trouble. Describing what a prepositional phrase is is not easy. We said it was a phrase, or a part of a sentence, that began with a preposition and then described something usually ending with a noun. For example, 'the boy went with his mother.' With is the preposition. 'With his mother' is the prepositional phrase because it describes who the boy went with. ('Mother' is a noun.) This took a lot more practice than we anticipated. It was most challenging for them to recognize that the preposition was part of the prepositional phrase. They kept thinking it was just the part after the preposition. I kept saying again and again, 'it BEGINS WITH, it STARTS WITH, it HAS TO HAVE the preposition. Prepositional phrases MUST have prepositions as part of them.' It was frustrating that they couldn't understand this and I didn't know how else to explain it. Slowly, through a lot of practice and some individual attention, I think everyone at least began to get it.

We were supposed to teach the difference between an adjectival prepositional phrase (it describes a noun, for example, 'the boy with his mother is young' has the preposition 'with' and the prepositional phrase 'with his mother.' The prepositional phrase is describing the boy, a noun, so it is adjectival) and an adverbial prepositional phrase (it describes a verb, for example, 'the boy went with him mother' has the preposition 'with' and the prepositional phrase 'with his mother.' The prepositional phrase is adverbial because it describes the way in which or how the boy went, his action). This is very complicated. I even got more than half the examples wrong. Considering how difficult prepositional phrases were we decided not to even go into this topic and I do not know if we will even attempt to go back to it. In my opinion, it's really just a grammar nuance that there's no reason to be hung up on. One student asked about this because he had read ahead before class. He's probably out most advanced student. I explained it to him and we went through a few examples, and I think he understood it for the most part, which was great and really encouraging. We finished class with some more reading. That was an encouraging way to end class because it was a funny section of the story and it seemed that everyone understood that.

I am always exhausted after teaching, and I have a new respect for teachers. I don't think I could ever do it. Teaching adults is especially difficult. I want so much for them to understand, so I speak slowly and I use a lot of hand gestures and I speak in as simple terms as I possibly can. I feel so condescending doing this, and I really hope they don't mind and that it is the right strategy to use. It's also a little stressful this year because for the first time the final exam will count for something (whether a student can move on to the next level) so I feel like I have the responsibility to prepare my students for the test. Thankfully, STAR recognizes that this is a difficult thing, especially given the nature of the classes, so my teaching partners and I will have a lot of say about what exactly our students are tested on. I know this seems like a way to let everyone pass, and maybe it is, but these people deserve to pass. They're really working hard and the environment they have to learn in is not the greatest. They only have class once a week for three hours and it's with college age students, most of whom have never taught before. On top of that I don't know nor do I want to even imagine some of the circumstances some of these people come from. Everyone's just doing the best they can. And like I have said before, the drive of these people to learn is incredible. Several of them have told us they want to have the class more than once a week. I think this would be a great thing. Learning something on a week to week basis is far too difficult. You forget too much. I can't imagine only having Arabic once a week. I'd never learn anything. It's really incredible that these people have come as far as they have with English and I think they should be rewarded for their hard work.

Even though teaching is difficult and stressful, I like that I am involved in it. Even despite having so much going on in class, we always have some interesting cultural discussions. This week a man from Sudan and a woman from Egypt talked with Jacque and I about Egypt. The man said he did not like Egypt. He liked Egyptians, just not Egypt. The woman said she loved Egypt. Jacque tried to explain that it was OK for them to have differing opinions but the woman was convinced that the man didn't like her for having the opinion that Egypt was a wonderful country. We explained that it was possible for a person to like another person, but not to like their opinion and that this should in no way be an affront to the latter person. She had trouble with this concept and seemed offended that he didn't like her opinion. By the end of the conversation, she had agreed that he had his opinion and she had hers and this was fine. It wasn't exactly a resolution, but I think it could be called progress. It was an interesting exchange and I was proud that the woman, the only woman in class, was speaking up, even if what she was saying seemed a bit misguided. It was a nice thing to see.

Another man in the class from Saudi Arabia who also does not like Egypt invited us to have tea with him and his family, saying that was the only way we would learn Arabic. He's apparently been going to some other level classes (these people just want to learn so much) and has also invited some of our friends to tea. A small group of us may go if tea is later in the day after school. At first we were a bit apprehensive, but I think it's just a cultural difference that we would think such a request would be inappropriate. Even if we don't go, I think it's good that we now recognize that things have different meanings in different cultures. You always need to be careful, but as long as you are safe (such as never going anywhere alone), you should be open minded about things.

Though teaching is something I don't know if I will ever do again, both here and in the US, I can and always will be up for a good mall trip anywhere, anytime, which is exactly what we took today. We went to City Stars, which is a mall about halfway between here and school. It's a huge building in the middle of the desert. It has over 600 stores, probably close to 100 restaurants and cafes, two 'amusement parks' which I think are mostly for children, and a movie theater. It's very, very Americanized. It was a nice break for everything today. We didn't buy much. We just walked around and we planned a dinner/movie trip back sometime in the near future. While it was a great day, and just what we all needed, thinking back on it, I'm a little struck by it all. There's so much of a divide in Egypt. There's extreme poverty and not in a very small amount by any means either, yet there's a mall easily ten times the size of my mall at home and countless other construction projects going on. I'm not saying this is wrong. I think it's important for development, but I wish there could also be progress made on the human development front. I don't think building malls and luxury hotels should be denied, I just think it should be accompanied by programs for extending jobs or something like that. It's a tough problem that's discussed again and again in my development classes and I definitely don't have the answer, but I think it's good that I am getting first hand experience with it and at least thinking about it in contexts outside of articles in textbooks and lectures in the classroom.

Taking away this serious commentary on the day, it was a very nice time and a frustration-free day, which is what we need sometimes and is so refreshing to have. If I can have at least one day like that per weekend, I'll be able to make it through week to week, handling anything and everything AUC and Egypt may have in store for me.