The Story of Second Semester

Hello again! Here I am, finally updating my blog, after a very busy first couple of months in the second semester. This semester, I’m leading more lessons and taking on more projects at my school, in addition to my after school Chinese classes and volunteer activities, so I’m busier than ever. So now I’m going to take some much-needed time to reflect on what teaching is like in the second half of a Fulbright ETA grant.

                Now that I’ve been there for a few months, I have two new responsibilities at my school this semester. I’m helping coach my school’s team for the county-wide annual Reader’s Theater Competition, where eight of my students will perform a play. I wrote a script adapting the story of Aladdin and it’s been incredible to see the way my students’ individual personalities peek out through their performances. It can be really hard to express oneself in a foreign language, so I love to see students playing their funniest Genie or wittiest Aladdin.

                 In addition to Reader’s Theater, I’m now leading my school’s English Club. It’s been one of the most fun teaching experiences I’ve had because I have so much freedom. Unlike with my other classes, I don’t have to follow any textbook or schedule, so my only goal is to ensure that my students have fun while learning English. We read picture books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, sing songs like Itsy Bitsy Spider, and play games like Red Light, Green Light. I’m teaching them about American holidays like Valentine’s Day. Last week, I hid Easter eggs around my classroom and had the students hunt for them. The eggs had slips of paper that corresponded with English questions they got candy for answering.

                In my regular English classroom, teaching feels much different this semester than it did the first. I’m much more comfortable leading lessons now and have a much better sense of what does and doesn’t work for English language learners. More importantly, my students and I are more comfortable with each other. It took my students a while to warm up to me, which is understandable given that I was a new, very different person in their lives. We had a lot of cultural and language barriers to overcome but now we’re able to connect with each other both inside and outside of class.

                I remember coming back the first day of second semester. My fourth graders ran to my class, screaming, “Eeeeeeemmmmmmmmmaaaaa!!” One came up to me and rambled at me in rapid-fire Chinese. I nodded along like I usually do when I don’t understand my students, but then my coteacher told me, “She just said that she missed you.” Another time, two fourth graders came into my room before class and picked up the picture book on my desk (Elbow Grease by John Cena). They began read it aloud together, sounding out the words they didn’t already know. I was nearly overcome with joy and pride, because they were working so hard to understand English without any prompting from me. The moment reinforced how important storybooks are and I was happy I could bring that story into my students’ lives.

                I know I’ve made incredible progress with my sixth graders just by the fact that they will now talk to me. Sixth grade is that difficult age where you don’t want to be caught dead actually getting along with your teachers, so trying to get my sixth graders to speak to me, let alone use any English, has been a struggle. But now that I’ve spent a lot more time with them and have shown them I’m willing to learn some Chinese in order to talk to them, they’ve warmed up to me. Now a group of girls approaches me in a giggling cluster before class every day. I ask them questions in English and then in Chinese. Another student said he wants to get better at English, so he’s begun to ask me his own questions in English, like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

                It’s strange to think that I only have three months left in Taiwan. Most of the time, I feel like I just got here, but then I’ll have an entire conversation in Chinese with a stranger or effortlessly navigate around the city on my scooter, and realize I’ve learned a lot from the time that I’ve been here. I’m excited to spend this semester building on all the knowledge and relationships I formed last year and embarking on new adventures with my students.