Although it was only four days of actual classes, I feel as if it has been an entire semester. Political science courses have finally kicked off and are accompanied by basic-low intermediate level English.
It certainly isn’t rocket science, but when trying to teach content to 40 freshman who can barely understand you the language barrier becomes quite formidable. The upper echelon of the class could easily handle more advanced material, discussions, and assignments; however, the average student probably could not comprehend a news article, and the bottom 10% may not even know what day it is. I am constantly dancing the fine line between teaching English and trying to delve into in-depth subject matter. It is certainly more interesting than teaching grammar, much of which I admittedly do not know the proper names, but it is becoming a little more difficult. This weekend looks promising as I aim to hammer out at least two weeks of solid lesson plans.
Thus far the students are great. Much like our previous ESL students, they are highly personable, eager to learn (at least on the surface), and are already complimenting our teaching style as far better than what they are accustomed to. Their energy and appreciation is helping us as we simultaneously trudge through the dredges of the administrative ranks. Our new boss seems to be a capable individual who is affable with a strong command of English. But he too is hampered by an institution with numerous slow moving parts.
At times it has felt as if we were being set up for failure, me in particular. For English I am stuck in a room with no projector and a white board that should have been trashed long ago; in Terminology I was relegated to a room with 15 seats for 40 students. After switching rooms I am now in a small lecture hall with a miniature white board and no tables, effectively eliminating the possibility of group work. Our requests for materials have been submitted to the “Deanery,” an oddly named building where the nomenclature suggests deans are processed like yogurt, but I doubt we will receive our procurement request anytime soon.
Another odd fact about working at this university is the institutionalizing of copyright infringement. There is a dearth of publishers and bookstores that will actually mail hard copies to Iraq because they know exactly what will happen. Copyright infringement is a norm and nearly every building on campus has a photocopy room. It doesn’t particularly bother me that these publishers are losing out on money; printing a new edition every year for an inflated price is a sham anyway. However, students should all have an actual copy of whatever book they are using and teachers should have access to the teacher’s materials. These are only available through legitimate purchases. I don’t see the situation improving because given the difficulties in receiving books, there is no other option but to copy the one book you do have!
All in all, I am excited that the program has finally started. For the next month or so we will only be teaching 11 hours per week, but once you add in grading the endless stream of papers in broken English, this easily gets up to around 20. Still nothing to complain about, but teaching is more tiring than I thought, especially the late night grading and preparation. I do have some trepidation for around one month from now when additional courses begin. Teaching hours will jump to around 20 and overall hours will hit around 30. Not the worst schedule in the world, but teaching from 10:30-2 and then having an awkwardly placed break until 4, then going until 7 makes for a long day…especially when teaching something that has come completely naturally to you for your entire life.
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