9.9.08
Last night I was cold in bed. I had several blankets piled on top of me and yet every so often the chilly air would settle on my face and send a shiver down my body. It was nice. Fall is around the corner and I have heard from various people how beautiful fall is here. The New England snob in me scoffs a little bit on the inside because it’s hard for me to imagine any fall that could compare to the fiery reds, vibrant yellows and the rich oranges of a New England fall. I have been told that the aspens turn an intense yellow and that there is nothing like it, but I would argue that there is nothing like fall back home. Truth be told, both statements could very well be true and it seems that there has not even been a satisfying autumn since before I studied in Dijon, which is now . . . three or four years ago. I remember distinctly missing autumn when I was in Dijon and feeling so excited about the prospect of returning to the kind of fall I grew up with. Then I got back the following year and it did not live up to my memories. I suppose the problem is that I had certain expectations of what I would return to.
In an attempt to preserve my ability to savor this time of year in Santa Fe, I am doing my best simply to not have expectations for what it will bring. This strategy is my attempt to preempt any disappointment, for if there is nothing built up in my mind, whatever happens cannot be worse than the nothing. I was telling Adi about all of this on Saturday as she and I drove up the mountain to the ski area for a nature adventure. She agreed that the no expectations approach was a good plan, but also reassured me that I will enjoy autumn in this area.
Our nature adventure, by the way, was just that. Last weekend she went off for a hike with a friend of hers and afterwards told me that it was awesome and she found something super neat, but would not tell me what it was. She wouldn’t tell me because she wanted to show me and that is what she did on Saturday. The mysterious something is a big fort made out of big branches just off one of the trails. It is kind of like a teepee made out of wood and you can sit inside of it. There are also some parts to it on the outside that you can access by climbing the ladder that whoever constructed the structure also constructed. It is clearly well made and sturdy. Immediately it evoked a memory of Yellowstone National Park where my brother, sister and I discovered a similar structure on one of my family’s cross-country trips. That structure, to the best of my memory, was more underground or at least not as built up into trees as this one was. We took some pictures and hung out there for a while, laying on one of the decks looking up through the aspens at the blue sky. It was one of those moments that would have been eternally satisfying. Of course it did not last an eternity and eventually we journeyed on.
When Adi was there without me, she had not ventured much further than the structure. This time she wanted to continue down the slope that it was built on to see what else we could find. So up and off we went, barreling down the mountain until we hit a little stream. I slipped at one point and my hand got a little scrapped up when I put it down to break my fall. It was nothing serious but it stung and I figured that the best way to numb it would be sticking it in the clear, cool running water of the stream. Umm, hm, “cool” does not really accurately represent the water. No, the water was freezing cold and was perhaps more painful than the scrape. We had had the foresight to bring my digital camera so we took some pictures, looked at some moss, swapped some stories about who knows what, and pressed on.
Leaping from one side of the stream and then back to the other, we followed it for a while. Not too far down we came upon a trail and decided to see where it would lead. Full of fresh air and energy, we ran down the path through the woods until it suddenly opened up on a field that looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale, and that is no exaggeration. The grass was a lush green and large trees and huge plants – some ferns, others I didn’t know, surrounded the opening. The stream bordered the field on the left and there were actually two that came rushing out of the forest over rocks in two small waterfalls and converged by a large rock. Bounding down towards the water I proclaimed my urge to jump in the water and Adi encouraged me to take off my shoes and socks and at least to stand in it. While the clear, shallow water and sandy bottom of the stream were really appealing, I hesitated. Then Adi took her shoes and socks off and I figured that I might as well follow suit. I waited for her to test the water and she said it was cold, but also bearable and worth it. I took a deep breath and stepped in. “Not so bad,” I thought as I walked across to the other side where she was standing. By the time I got to the other side, however, the cold had taken hold and I leapt out with a shriek. We waded around a bit more. Then we took turns taking pictures and laying in the sun.
A giant rock on the other end of the clearing where the forest took over again was calling to me, so I ran off ahead to climb it. Taking a few more pictures, Adi hung back but soon joined me at the top. It was chilly and we realized that the day was slipping away from us. A few more pictures for good measure and we headed back. The return trip was easy and much quicker because we followed the trail directly back rather than following our own trail. Having cut through the woods down a fairly steep slope, the return trip involved a great deal of uphill and thoroughly wore us out. We got back to her car simultaneously exhausted and elated with what a fun afternoon in the woods it had turned out to be.
It is so easy for me to lose track of how much enjoyment I can find in the forest doing nothing but walking, running, splashing, talking, exploring and being in nature. The outdoors was such a huge part of my childhood in many ways – family camping trips, canoeing, hiking, the motor home, afternoons in the backyard, bike rides, etc. Somewhere along the way, in adolescents I believe, I kind of forgot how to be and appreciate nature. I guess I became preoccupied with adolescent stuff. I’m glad that it was such a big part of my childhood and I’m glad that here other side of the teenage years I am able to find it again and again. It also helps to be around other people who not only like it, but who react with such energy and enthusiasm as Adi and as my social circle here. I like feeling excited about being connected to the earth. Oh that sounds cheesy. But whatever, it’s true.
You know what else I like? I like teaching. I can safely say that now that I have finished teaching my very first adult ESL class today. I was feeling very nervous and also rather ambivalent about it all day today. My students are the lowest level (other than basic literacy) and they are all native Spanish speakers (well, that is not entirely true, but to the best of my knowledge this afternoon it was). Speaking not a single word of Spanish, I felt concern over my ability to communicate what I would need to with my students. Of course not once did I teach a class in French last year, despite the fact that I could have, so my inability to speak Spanish theoretically does not matter. But theory is theory, and the reality is that it was always comforting to know that worst-case scenario in France I could break into French and clear up any major confusion or issues. I also felt very unsure of how much to plan, and what to focus on. The class is two to two and a half hours long (depending on if anyone can show up early), which is a long time. It is especially a long time to drill the same five sentences over and over again. I mean, drilling isn’t really the best or only teaching tool available to me and two hours is nice in that it gave me a lot of time for a lot of different activities. My nervousness there came from whether or not I could come up with those activities and whether or not I could explain the instructions easily enough. Oh, and when I get nervous, I talk more and I talk faster. That’s a great way to help my non-English speaking students – talk more and more in half-sentences that are mumbled and to myself quickly because I realize that they are not understanding and I am sinking fast.
As I planned my lesson I tried not to focus on any of that. Because we had made the decision to continue registration this week, I decided not to use the book at all. I also decided to err on the side of too easy and very repetitive. One of my big concerns was making sure that the students felt welcome and not too scared of the fact that class will be taught entirely in English. To this end I bought candy and a ball to throw around a bit. I planned a lesson that would focus on introductions. I made myself notes and wrote down important things to remember, such as “model everything I want them to do.” I arrived very early and was able to breathe a bit before everything got going.
As I could have anticipated, when class began everyone was rather quiet and shy. The silence, blank stares and realization that they have no clue what I am saying always causes a panic to wash over me. I became a bit flustered and started to doubt my lesson plan. I started in on, “Hi, my name is Becky. What’s your name?” and went through that a few times. Then I remembered that I wanted them to write their names on an index card so that I could take a picture of them holding up their name. I am terrible with names and really, really want to learn them as soon as I can. Pictures help. Whipping the camera out, I tried in vane to explain that I wanted pictures to help with names. I’m assuming that when I held up my card in front of me to show what I wanted them to do, they figured out what I was doing. Again I felt a moment of panic and feared that I was going to totally embarrass, confuse and scare them. Then I decided just to focus on telling them to give me pretty smiles in the picture. I did so by grinning the biggest, cheesiest grin I could muster as I said, “give me a beautiful smile Ana! What!? Ana? Where’s the smile!?” I went through that whole bit with everyone and it actually got them laughing. Some speak more English than others and so there was some murmuring in Spanish that seemed to help clarify things for people. Once I got through taking everyone’s photo, I felt more relaxed and the class also seemed to be a little more at ease.
We went back to the sentences and practiced some more. I had everyone stand up, and then I stood on a chair so that I could see them (oh how professional I am). I had my trusty bag of candy in hand and got one person’s attention. “Hi, my name is Becky, what’s your name?” I asked. Maribel answered and I asked if she wanted a piece of candy. I asked the whole class if I should give her one. They seemed to agree she earned it, so I threw it to the back of the room where she was. Candy throwing never falls to get a laugh out of a class, so there was some more laughter. Then, instead of calling on someone else, I asked Maribel to pick someone and ask him or her his or her name. Once she did, I asked her if that person should get a piece of candy. Once I threw the second person the candy, I let Maribel sit down. We continued on with this until no one was left standing and everyone had a piece of candy. The exercise was helpful for me because it indicated a few people who are clearly struggling more than the rest. The few people I am thinking of seemed a bit confused as to what the question was and what the answer was. There were also two or three who were clearly having trouble pronouncing the words. Hopefully I did not embarrass them too much. It’s helpful for me to know who they are.
As we were going through the various exercises, a few new students trickled in here and there. One of them was a Chinese guy who will actually not be in my class in the future; he was with me today because the other ESL teacher was doing registration, so I took her students. We moved on and learned how to ask where someone is from and how to answer it. One of the activities that I wanted to do involves breaking the class into two circles, forming an inner and outer circle. The inner circle faces the outer circle and everyone should have a partner. They were to introduce themselves to their partner using what we had learned. Then once they finished, everyone in the inner circle would step to their right and introduce himself or herself to the new partner. Well, talk about complicated to explain. I started out by making everyone go in the hall with me because there just wasn’t room in the classroom. That was fine and it was actually a relief because the hallway was cool and the classroom was hot. Then I set up the circles, which involved physically moving some people around. I tried my very best to demonstrate what I wanted to have happen and it worked until they had to rotate. The rotation just led to chaos and they ended up randomly introducing themselves in what was more a lumpy mass than two organized circles. But really, they practiced, they were up and moving and they were out of the classroom for a bit, so in the end it wasn’t a total failure.
Continuing to fly by the seat of my pants (for my “lesson plan” had been a bit too much of a rough sketch to serve me beyond a very general idea of what I wanted to get done), we went back into the room and worked on, “I speak __________.” Seeing as all but one of my students are native Spanish speakers, it didn’t really last very long. Xue Liang got to say he speaks Chinese, and I got to say that I speak English and French. I also made everyone say that they speak Spanish and English, which caused them to all laugh a bit. I insisted that by being in my classroom they spoke English – at the very least five sentences. Feeling a little worried about filling the rest of class and being too boring/repetitive, I gave a five-minute break. Being the genius that I am, I had forgotten to tell them that they needed to stay in or right outside of my classroom so after making a huge deal of saying “FIVE MINUTES,” I ended up chasing several of them down the hall. One of the more advanced students said, “five minutes already!?” with a wink and a laugh. I was able to corral them back to the classroom area and show them the bathrooms that are closest to us.
My little forgetful moment reminded me that I needed to tell them a few basic rules/procedures, so after break I went over things like “stay here during break” and where the bathrooms are. I also took that time to go remind them that class takes place Tuesday and Thursday from 5:45-8:00PM. Wanting to make extra-sure that it was clear and also wanting to show them that I know how hard learning a new language is, I asked one of the guys in the front how to say Tuesday and Thursday in Spanish. They got a kick out of it. Then I turned to Xue Liang and in one of those moments where my memory kicks in and astounds me with what is tucked away in my brain, I said, “and in Chinese it’s xingxi . . .” and forget the last part. Well, let me tell you, they were all impressed that I knew that much and again we got some laughter in. Xue Liang reminded me of how to say it. Then I asked how to say 5:45 in Spanish – much harder than the days of the week. I finished up class by throwing the ball around in the circle and having everyone ask each other one question from the lesson. It seemed to go fairly well. As they exited I stood by the door and offered one last piece of candy to them all. I know there were a few women who were rather lost and having a really hard time, but my hope is that they felt welcomed, cared for and relaxed enough that they won’t be scared off.
Oh, the other interesting thing that happened is that the custodian popped in and hung out for a while. Last week he was talking with another ESL teacher who was helping with registration and who speaks Spanish. She told him that I’d be teaching level one and his eyebrows went up when she also told him that I don’t speak Spanish. He was very curious as to how I would pull that one off, and the other teacher simply said that we use a lot of gestures and pictures. He still seemed a bit skeptical and when he popped in today, I invited him to have a seat and to hang out if he could. He ended up staying for a little while and we made sure to include him. I get the impression that his English is a little better than most of the class, but it didn’t really matter much. Technically if he wants to be part of my class he would have to register. He also might actually be on the clock and therefore not really able to be in class, but I told him that he is always welcome to join us.
I guess what amazes, fascinates and excites me about teaching is how much goes into any given class. I suppose that is why I am so addicted to journaling about it and writing down all of these details, reflections, thoughts and stories that are most likely boring to anyone other than myself. I’m not trying to be conceited talking about how much we laughed or how successful various things where (really, there was a lot of chaos and a decent amount of disorganization in what happened in my class tonight). I’m just trying to sift through the layers of what happened/happens to figure out what works and how it works (was it successful in teaching them new vocab/expressions? was it successful in achieving my goal of welcoming my students? was there some other goal that I hadn’t consciously considered? etc.). I am sure that the majority of the class missed the majority of what I actually said tonight. But, that is part of immersion and of jumping into a new language. I get tomorrow off and then have to continue on with them Thursday. I hope they all come back.
Hm, last thing to note here is that I finally was able to submit my application to be a substitute teacher for the public schools so hopefully I’ll be getting called soon and finally get a foot in the door here, which more hopefully will lead to something a little more concrete, long-term.

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