Wednesday, January 19, 2011

"My Other Comp. Teacher was French and Deaf": First Day Back at School!


So as many of you know, I teach as an adjunct instructor. Today, I started the spring semester, this time at a new community college. This college has a satellite campus in the town next to me. And my class only has only 9 people in it (it only needs 5 to run, so we're in the safe zone as far as paychecks go). I teach another section on Saturday mornings. And the pay is less.

Some of you might think this Saturday-morning-and-less-dough-thing is a raw deal. Not me.

Because this means, compared to other semesters:
1.) I have a commute that is shorter by, oh, one entire hour.
2.) I have classes that are shorter by, oh, about twenty students.

And today I already had a student tell I am much better than the instructor she had last semester, mainly because I spoke coherent English, and I am not hard of hearing.

This particular class, though, will be a bit of a challenge in that it is a basic reading class. And the real challenge there is: many of the people who adjunct at colleges never had to take a Composition course, let alone a basic reading course, because we tested out. At least, this is what I've discovered when talking to my fellow adjuncts and instructors.

And I don't blame my students as much as I blame my inability to see things where they are coming from. It's hard to figure out how to put together assignments and ask questions on the spot and consider the possibility that my students really do not know what the hell I am talking about. The sad thing is, they don't know what the hell I am talking about, but they are too embarrassed to tell me this.

That might be one of my biggest challenges as a teacher. Also: making grammar seem fun.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Emma,
    I saw your post because Ed advertised it on Twitter. I taught high school foreign language for 8 years and I just thought I'd give a word of advice. You probably know this, but I would recommend giving your students a pretest to get a feel for what they know and don't know. Good luck with that class. It sounds challenging!

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