December 14, 2011

I got the time wrong again to cover Pariso’s class and was there at 8:50am. Instead of students, I got three teachers eager for answers to multiple questions about U. S. history, culture and of course, grammar points. I can’t determine when classes will stop and the testing begin. I was told today that all students need to have had 100 hours of instruction before being tested and each instructor is responsible for extending the lecture period if necessary. I was then told that teachers do come to the institute in January even when there are no students, but they could not explain why.

                                              Traditional versus Modern

My first class’ students were a now show for the 9:50 class and came in at 10:50 instead. I told them I had a conversation class in Mr. Sadat’s class and would see then on Thursday. Following up on last week’s activity where the students had had a very difficult time using the proper pronouns, I brought in a handout with complete list of all pronouns and a subsequent exercise for them to identify and correct any mistakes in it. It took them almost 40 minutes to finish it with lots of questions from row to row instead of working with their assigned partners. It was clear while reviewing that these third year students cannot differentiate between personal and object pronouns and the contraction of the verb “to be” and the possessive pronouns.

When we moved on to a speaking activity about the family, I asked students what kind of activities they enjoyed doing with their families, the student started by saying: “My family is not large……”. The next student started with the same spiel until I pointed out to him that the question did not ask about the size of the family only to realize that they had memorized this piece of information from previous classes and were just reciting it for my benefit. They had never been encouraged to exercise critical thinking and to speak spontaneously about any particular topic. What a pity!

Caroline met me for lunch at the cafeteria across the street and we then proceeded to the American School where Nazila had asked me to observe her Tajik teachers and give them feedback. I met Samad as he nervously waited outside the classroom to teach a social study lesson on natural disasters to first and second graders. His English was quite fluent as he had had a chance to study at the American Corner in his village. I provided him with immediate feedback at the end of the lesson and a report to his superior, Nazila, afterwards.

Walked to the stationery store to buy supplies for the workshop on Saturday and then inspected the whiteboard I want to bring to the PedInst now that the dean confirmed I’ll have classroom #12 assigned to me and can even change the lock if I so desire, which I certainly do. I was also able to print the photos I had taken at my students’ home back in November.

Ran into Daroush while walking home and told him we wanted to take Peter out to dinner before his departure, hopefully to the new Iranian restaurant opening this Friday. Nilufar came for her lesson, but hadn’t done of the assigned homework as she claimed Mariam had been out of the house all day and she had to look after the baby by herself.