Back To School

School started here last Wednesday, with a ceremony called “First Bell,” where parents and teachers join students in the yard to ring in the new school year. Besides the ceremonial ringing of a bell, there was a parade of new first grade students, welcome speeches from the director and selected students, song and dance performances, and an awful lot of balloons, which sometimes popped at moments terrifying to the new first graders.

Melissa's school:

Sam's School:

Then back to work. For the first two weeks or so, we’re supposed to sit in and observe as many classes and teachers as we can, before choosing the ones with whom we want to work. Melissa’s school has eight English teachers; mine only has four, and the way the schedule works out it looks like I’ll be working with at least three of them, so I don’t have quite the spread of options. My school starts teaching English in the fifth grade, though, as part of the Saakashvili government’s push for English education, they’re supposed to soon start from first grade.

Both of our schools were fairly recently renovated, and so we have some of the nicer facilities in the country (at least outside of the biggest cities). Most of our potential teaching counterparts have been very eager to work with us and involve us in their lessons. As is the case everywhere, some students are really excited and eager to learn, and some are…less so. Classroom management is a bit different here, and I think I’ll be glad to leave the disciplining mostly to my counterpart; the ear-pulling and head-smacking is not exactly my style.

There are advantages and challenges to teaching here. For me, the advantages have been a really excellent director and counterparts, the eager students (especially, in my case, in the younger grades), an extremely friendly and supportive teaching staff, facilities that are overall very nice, and the mystique that comes with being an American. I’m sure this will wear off in a few months, but for now it gets me some attention and respect from the kids that I probably wouldn’t get right off the bat in an American classroom. It’s also nice being in the Armenian school, since I get to hone my own language skills (I catch some of the kids smiling as I scribble down the translations they’re giving).

There are challenges as well. The Georgian government wants us to use new English textbooks, but these books are in Georgian, which neither the teachers nor many of the students know. So we’re using some books from Armenia (pretty good ones, in fact) with the Georgian/English book as a supplement -- a bit confusing for the kids. There’s a lot of emphasis on reading and translating complex texts, and not much chance for the students to practice basic communicative skills. We’re hoping to give them some more opportunities to do so. There is also a tendency to teach to the handful of ‘good’ students and leave the struggling or disinterested ones out. It’s nice that we’ll be working in pairs, so that hopefully we can bring more students into active participation.

There’ll be more to say as we start actively teaching, but for now, we’re happy to be back to work, meeting the students, and making our plans for the year.