Teaching is best when...

Thank you very much for having me in your classes this week. I had fun observing all the great teaching and learning that goes on in your classes. I still have to visit the Tuesday and Saturday classes, and I will make sure I do that after spring break.

The best part about observing the classes is that you realize it's all worth it! All the headaches, all the problems, all the photocopying, all the e-mails, all the chasing, all the meetings, all the fighting… really it's all worth it when you see the teachers in action, the learners' smiles, and all the wonderful things happening in the classroom. Thank you everyone for being a part of Language Bridges!

Here's some feedback to help you with your teaching in the future. Teaching is best when...

You are well-prepared: This is very crucial for all teachers, but particularly more for new teachers. The materials for this program were designed for volunteers with no experience, so everything that you need to know about how to teach the material, what to say, how to transition from one activity to the other, how to talk to the learners, what questions to ask, everything is there! So please, get together with your teaching partners, review the material, learn it, and teach it well. When observing your teaching, it was very clear to me who had prepared and who had not. Make the best of out of this experience for you and your learners and come very well prepared to your next class.

You follow the materials and lesson plans, but most importantly follow your learners, their needs, their interests, their background, and where they want to go. If the materials are too hard, make them easier. If the materials are too easy, make them harder. If all the examples in the materials are about people from Egypt and all your learners are from Sri Lanka, make some changes so that you make the materials more relevant to your learners. In the applying for a job lesson, the learners could apply to any kind of job they would want, not just the ones listed in the sample job applications. Next time to follow up on this activity, bring newspaper job ads and have them read them, find jobs that interest them, learn new words, etc.

You know your students: Keep using your name tags and call your students by their name. In some classes I saw name tags and it was nice to see the teachers addressing their learners by their names. When there were no name tags, it was hard for the teachers to remember everyone's names. So keep using the name tags throughout the program.

You have fun with your learners: Make class fun, joke with your learners, play games. When you play games, be enthusiastic and try to have prizes. Your learners will love that! We will collect prizes to use in your classes and leave them in the student club's suite for you to give away in your classes. If you have T-shirts, bags, mugs, caps, notebooks, pens at home, bring them to use them in your class as prizes. Also, have the learners lead the games as well. If you play hangman, you can lead the game a couple of times and then call on different learners to the board to lead the game themselves.

You engage in conversation about your learners' lives and experiences: When you start your class, engage your learners in conversation, ask them about their week, their weekend, their families, their jobs. When doing activities, ask follow-up questions to get a conversation going in class. For example, if you are doing abilities and one of them says he can't drive, ask him if he'd like to learn how to drive and why. I'm sure a lot of them would like to drive so they can advance in their jobs.

Encourage participation from all the learners: Of course it's easy to rely on the talkative and more advanced learners in our class, and that's something that it's encouraged to get conversations going and to model some activities. But good teachers involve all learners in the learning process. We don't want to leave anybody behind.

Be responsive to what your learners say: Follow up with questions, ask for elaboration, be sympathetic, engage in conversation.

Encourage a learner-centered environment with more talk from the learners and less talk from the teachers. I observed a great deal of teacher talk. While teachers need to give directions and teach material, the learners should be doing most of the talking in a class.

Use the computer and internet resources in the classroom: Play songs, teach songs, use youtube videos, show them our Facebook page, encourage them to like our Facebook page and write on it.

When teaching vocabulary, write down the words on the white board and encourage the learners to copy them.

Continue to have fun and making a difference in people's lives! I'm very proud of your work!

Week 3

At the beginning of class, we checked our students homework and made them come up in front of the class to read it to make them more comfortable talking in front of others. Since a lot of the students didn't attend last class, we had them come up and talk about themselves too. After each student finished talking, we would put up some of the mistakes they had, and let the class correct them. We're still not sure about the number of students in our class, as every class we are joined by new students and some are absent! We also had a student from the Saturday class attend with us.

Our class yesterday was mostly about job applications. We managed to get through the material quite quickly, and decided to have the students come up and act out job interviews and fill out job applications. First, Sakib and I acted out an example of how an interview would go, and then chose two students at a time to come up and do the same. They really enjoyed the acting activity, some of them even asked questions that weren't on the list of questions that we had given them. 

Since we got through the material quite  early, we decided to go over some of the intermediate vocabulary with them that was related to jobs, and also read some of the intermediate stories with them too. After each story we had a discussion about what happened and what they understood. A lot of the students are still shy, but with a little encouragement they end up participating with us in the discussion.

For next weeks class, we'll have to take a good look over the materials and decide whether we're going to need more since the students are able to finish the activities quickly. The student's seem to like the class and we hope that they will all be here again next week.

-Sara

Khalid Allouba's Reflection

This week was finally the charm where everything went on without a hitch! No buses went to the wrong place, no classes were canceled, nothing got confusing and we had GREAT booklets for our students and teachers and this weeks lesson was SO MUCH FUN! they are all such good students and although some of them seem like they are struggling, they just surprise you every time by how they get through with flying colors with just a little support and reassurance. I am realizing more and more that this as this proram goes on, how much I really enjoy seeing other people's faces light up at the chance of grabbing knowledge and this is supporting me every week to feel more encouraged about my academic life as I go through my daily routine and that I should always appreciate what I have here in Carnegie Mellon University. I really do not have much more to say other than thank you RAJI and till next time Allouba OUT!

Second Week

Second Week

These are some photos from our class last Tuesday. We learnt from the first class that all of our students are at the intermediate level, but in this class we were joined by a new Chinese student that wasn't as advances as the other students.We decided that Amna would stay with him at the back of the class and help him catch up with the other students. We were able to finish most of the activities in the booklet, but didn't have enough time for the second pretest in the booklet. They seemed to enjoy the activities, though we had to explain it to them a couple of times and encouraged them to interact with the other students. 

After the class we walked them back to the bus, where they told us about how much they were enjoying the class and how much they liked the building. They are very excited to come back, and hopefully this weeks class will go as well as last week's.

Sara,

LBP Week 2

Week 2-
Our start of the day was quite problematic. Firstly we did not have access to the room in which we were supposed to be teaching. Secondly as a result of miscommunication, the company was not aware that they were supposed to be sending their students here to the CMU campus. Anyhow, thankfully with the help of Silvia and Julie, these obstacles were overcome. You cannot expect things to go always as planned and this was certainly the case.




Moving ahead, the students eventually arrived and they were simply amazed by Education City as a whole. They told us how much they liked it and how privileged they felt to be here. It was a great day and we took quite a lot of pictures.

We began our class as usual and came up with another obstacle. The computer was not functional, this prevented us from taking proper attendance and also use media to enhance their experience.

But no matter we were ready, we had prepared beforehand by going over the lesson plan and thankfully, not much media use was required. As for the attendance we used some improvisation and were able to confirm who was present and who was not. The class went great, we were actually able to finally pinpoint the break point where some students could be considered intermediate and others beginners. The students were intent and active in learning and they really enjoyed being here at the campus. All in all we achieved what we were aiming for. 

Aisha's Third Class Thoughts

Our third class went better than expected. After experimenting with different materials, we decided touse the basic one. I felt this was a wise idea as the students feltmore comfortable and started participating in class. Some of thestudents even had the courage to stand up and read. This clearlyshows us that the students are learning something from the class andare becoming more confident with their level of english. In myopinion, reaching this point is very important when learning alanguage, because, unless you're confident enough to speak it, youwon't continue improving.

Aisha

Teaching at CMU

Yesterday, Ahmed and I were one of the first groups to teach the learners at CMU. At around 6.25, we eagerly waited for their buses to arrive. However, they ended up arriving 30 minutes late. This made us feel quite worried as we thought that them having to come here every week might not work out. After seeing the excitement on their faces when they first entered the building, we were really hoping that it would.


We first guided them to the classroom and got them settled. We then asked them about how they felt coming to our building. A lot of them preferred coming here than having the classes at their camp. Personally, I think having them at our building is much more beneficial for the learners. This is because they would get the chance to feel like "real students", which would hopefully encourage them to put in a greater effort and take the classes more seriously.


As we were quite behind schedule, we instantly started doing the intermediate material. The listening exercise was the most challenging. We had to repeat the dialogue around 4 times. Yet most of them still didn't manage to do the exercise properly. At that point, it became clear to us that the intermediate material was too hard for them to do. Therefore, next class, we would like to use exercises from the basic material and see how it goes from there.


Aisha

The First Week at the UDC Camp

The first day of classes went really well. We had two good hours of teaching and interaction with the students. First, we were given the attendance sheets and the names of all students in our class. Since there were two sections, the students came one by one and checked if their names were on our list. The fact that they could read and identify their names so quickly gave us a good idea of what level they were at. In a few minutes, all students had arrived and we had reached the capacity size of 15 students in the class.

Our first task was to give them name tags and have them write their names on it. The students quickly took the pens and wrote their names in big, bold letters. We were impressed with their writing and could see that they did not struggle too much with their names. We had them place their name tags on the desks in front of them.

The first activity that we did was the introduction. Prince and I introduced ourselves first and asked them to follow. They started introducing themselves one by one, giving their names and nationality and job positions. We did not want it to be a very formal and intimidating experience and so we asked them to continue sitting while introducing themselves. We thought that asking them to stand up would put them under some pressure. After we completed one round of introduction, I wrote the correct format of an introduction on the board. It was simple, yet effective. We taught them how to introduce properly and after we wrote it up, the students wanted to practice it with a new format. They were really learning it quick and soon enough, everyone could introduce themselves in good, simple and proper English sentences. This was a good achievement for the first class. After the introduction, we also gave them a quick lesson on greetings (eg. Good Morning, Good Evening etc.)

The next activity was with the printed pictures. We split the group into two’s and gave each pair a picture. Their task was to describe the picture in three-four sentences. After a while, one person from each group spoke about what they had written. After they were done, we talked a little more about the pictures and added a few more important points about them.

  

We took a 15 minute break after this activity. The students and we were recharged after the little tea break and we were back to work. We played hangman with the group and they were pretty good at guessing the words. Perhaps, the words we gave them were a bit too simple (eg. Table, light etc). However, they really enjoyed it since it just proved the fact that they did know some English and they were really excited to know more. After the game, we assigned the pre-tests. They were given 20 minutes to complete it. We noticed that writing was an issue for the students and that they could speak and read pretty well in comparison to writing. We collected the pre-tests for grading. We also assigned a one-page homework sheet which they will complete by next class. The students were very co-operative and were really excited to be there. They really respected us and I think their quest to learn is something that will motivate me to keep teaching and helping them out.  

Labor Camp Experience

I really miss my learners especially after the first class. I was really enthusiastic and I could not wait for the next class. I had so much energy and I was well prepared to teach the next class. The next class meant so much for me, because it is the chance to fix the previous mistakes. The next class was the chance to start the real teaching, with the actual content we were developing. The next class was next big step, because our journey with these learners is quite short and every class is a big step for both of us. However, we missed a big step due to the sudden changes enforced by the CMU administration. The changes suggest that we are no longer going to teach in the labor camps, instead we are teaching in CMU. I was not happy with changes, and the way it have been done. I felt that I am missing big part of the teaching experience due to these new changes. I am not resisting change here but I am really missing something big.

When we used to teach in the labor camps, it was more challenging and interesting. The interesting and challenging part starts with the resources. In the labor camp the available resources were very basic, in comparison to what we have here in CMU. We as students are used to these advanced resources such as power point, projectors and internet, however the story is different for us when we go there and we do not have any of that. This fact was my major concern when I took this class in the beginning. Because when I am teaching anything, I always think in terms of technology, what sort of technology I am going to use and how I am going to use it. These are the questions I always to try to find an answer for. Power point and a project were vital tools that I always make the assumption they were there. Now I go the labor camp I only have a small white board and few small printed papers with me. Here there is a huge gap, of what I am used to have and what I have there. This gap in fact is one of the greatest aspects of this experience and personally I can relate to this because my previous teaching experience in Rwanda.

Last summer when I was in Rwanda I never thought I will be able to teach the basics of programming to kids, without a projector. It was something almost impossible to do because how I am going to show them how to add something to the program? It is a very hard question to answer. Yet, I was able to answer this question in a way I did not imagine. I was teaching kids programming on software that they have never seen in their lives, without a projector, and they were able to do everything I taught them to do. The results were surprisingly amazing. Now if we try to apply the same principle in our teaching in the labor camps, I think each of us, as students, will have his own creative way addressing this issue. Because each of us is facing this issue and have to address it to make his learners understand what he says. I believe each of us will be a better teacher than what he/she thinks. I believe that if you are a good teacher with basic resources then you can be great teachers with advanced resources.

In a brief, what I talked about is just one aspect of the labor camp experience. I did not talk about how the labor camp experience could make us appreciate what we have, makes us humble people and create adaptable individuals. I think the labor camp experience specifically and what we do in this class aligns with what CMU wants us to do and it helps in creating the person CMU wants to see.

The First Week

            Thinking back to the reflection I wrote last week before my first class, I can’t help but feel amused at how nervous and anxious I was to begin teaching. To begin with, it was something Abaan – who teaches with me – said as we walked into the camp at The Pearl. I had been complaining all day about how nervous I was and how the whole experience was going to be a disaster, until finally he told me to stop and think about the migrant workers instead. At least I was in my comfort zone – these learners were going to walk into a room and spend the next 2 hours communicating in a language that did not come as easy and naturally as it does to us. They were going to sit there and be taught a new language by students a lot younger than them. How would that make them feel? If I was nervous, the group of men due to attend their first Language Bridges class must be much more on edge.

So it was not a total surprise when the moment I walked into the classroom on Wednesday evening I became at ease. Gradually, I felt like I had been doing this forever, rather than it being my first class. Mostly this was due to the friendly and warm nature of our learners, which was evident right from when they walked in and greeted us. Over the next 2 hours as we got to know our group and talk to them about where they come from, their families, whether they have any children or not, their jobs, etc. I was reminded of something another Language Bridges teacher had told me the day before. I understood then what this person had meant when they said you personally feel tiny and grossly ungrateful in comparison to the sheer enthusiasm these learners express just to be able to learn Basic English. I spend every day attending classes that cover a range of differing subjects, however continue to take my education and exposure for granted, whereas if you were to spend some time with this group of learners you would think they were studying the most fascinating topics in the world.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the learners’ English and how much more advanced it was than I had been anticipating. There were points during the class where Abaan and I felt sheepish for being equipped with such easy and basic materials. We were constantly improvising and trying to come up with new ideas on the spot to keep our learners interested and entertained. We quickly realised by how much we had underestimated their language skills and the speed at which they can learn new things. Towards the end, after giving them the pre-test, we explained the concept of Hangman to them and encouraged them to come up to the board and make up their own words. One of the learners was so enthusiastic that he wanted to have several chances even though he had not been in the room while we explained the rules and concept of the game.

Overall, I loved my first class and could not stop gushing about how amazing and talented my learners are to anyone who would listen. I cannot wait to continue spending time with them and teach them as much as I can. During a really tough and stressful semester, it is nice to know that there is something I can look forward to every week. Becoming a part of Language Bridges was definitely one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. 

~ Reham Shaikh

Obstacles - New Location

Although our first week went well this year, with a lot of excitement in the program, we had to unfortunately cancel our classes this week due to various issues that we've encountered. 

However, with Professor Silvia's commitment and efforts, classes will hopefully take place next week in Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar's building! We're excited to have our students come to learn in our building for the first time in Language Bridges.

In the mean time, the Language Bridges team is refocusing its efforts into figuring out and refining details of the program and tailoring the curriculum to fit each class's needs.

Stay posted for updates and opinions on how the classes at CMU-Q work out.

First Impression

First Impression

            Monday 6^th of February was a day to remember, It was the first day for Sama, ‘Hadad and I to teach. That evening was filled with anticipation and not knowing what we got ourselves into at first, later those feelings transformed into feelings of excitement, responsibility, obligation and joy. Our students are Managar, Laxman, Hem, Roshan with an ‘s’, Prakash, Devraj, Dipak, Kashiraj, Hashan, Pradee, J.Roshen, Saman, S.Meril, Lakmal, and Kedar who wasn’t on the list but saw the class was about to start and asked if he could voluntarily attend. I’m really proud that I could match the faces to the names on the attendance sheet and could call some of them spontaneously, however I hoped to meet John Rajo, he’s another student that could not attend that evening.

            We started the class by introducing ourselves and then taking it step by step slowly in aims of trying to explore the general level of the class, and the skills and abilities of the labor workers in an English classroom. Ending the class with a pre-test to confirm our findings, but we were overwhelmed by the class average. We thought we had a basic class but what we discovered was that our students were pretty advanced. This taught me not to underestimate shy and quiet individuals.

           

Regards,
AL Hanouf

Reflection on Saturday Class

We embarked onto our first class for Spring '12 on Saturday the 11th at CDC in the Industrial Area. As was the case in the previous year, our group comprised of Fawwaz and I though Ahmed served as the new entrant after we had lost Aveed to a multitude of university courses and, ostensibly, lack of interest, though he never agreed to the latter assessment. Though drowsy-eyed, we were elated with expectant spirits at the prospect of meeting a few of our older students and at the idea of getting free apple juice from the nice manager who spoiled us in Spring '11.

The following pictures chronicle the same morning ritual of quick revisions and teaching strategies we followed last year, albeit with Aveed:




This picture shows Ahmed going through the lesson plans for the day, while contemplating a blog entry. Of course, he was not able to get through the said entry because his laptop is a piece of junk. (sorry bro)

This picture shows my arrival and bafflement at the sheer amount of paper on the table, while considering stealing a croissant or a scone from the breakfast provided for the CS4Qatar high-school students.

This is a picture Fawwaz forced me to take, chastising most of my attempts for not getting his 'good side'. And, of course, he is sitting in his usual conceited stance, intoning delusional verses of self-supremacy while Ahmed and I struggled to stay awake.




After we had gone through the routine of organizing the material for the class, we made our way to the main parking lot to embark on our journey. Our designated driver had arrived before time, so all of us felt guilty for making him wait. Once we were on our way, however, a little of the guilt faded with every pot-hole we hit along the Industrial Area road. It was not a long journey though, we reached CDC in about 20 minutes, not as drowsy anymore and ready to begin our lessons.

The picture on the left shows our van. As is clear, Ahmed and I are almost asleep.

The gentlemen at the back were part of our class for the day.








We were pleased to find out that we would have a much larger class this time around. We would be teaching about 19 students, as compared to just 11 in the previous semester. Sadly though, only one of our previous students, Suresh, would be returning for the class this year. We briefly re-kindled fond memories of the year past, while we waited for our class to be cleaned and made ready for the teaching session ahead.

We began the session in 15 minutes following our arrival, the following photos chronicle the session:

Here, we can see Ahmed endowing our students with a plethora of scholarly concepts. Since the students seemed to know a lot more than he did, he stopped midway to continue with general introductions as planned.

Our students listen patiently as we describe the extension to our first activity, a slightly more advanced version of introductions now including more variables such as: nature of work, work-hours, and level of satisfaction with work.







Fawwaz writes down the different variables involved in the said activity. The students seemed to grasp these concepts with quite some ease, something we had not expected.

We then asked the students to introduce themselves to each other, further reinforcing a general understanding of English.

Our students complete their pre-test. We waited till the end of our first activity before handing them out, hoping introductions would serve as a warm-up towards their English skills. 

Here I debrief our students on the activities about to follow. Most of them reacted with joy at the prospect of group-work, some seemed indifferent. Fawwaz seemed fidgety as usual because he has some unusual form of OCD.

Here, Ahmed described our group activity to the students in much more detail. Explaining how students will be grouped in 4's, each given a set of images, and they are required to work through the images in their groups and name each image.





The activity went on pretty well, with a good amount of participation within each group. Nearly every one got every image right, which reinforced a sense of stronger expectation within us. Maybe next week, we will work them a little harder. We did notice some disparity within the knowledge of English between the students; most students struggled with concepts we tested them on but about four or five students seem to have a strong grasp of the language. One of the students even asked us, after we were done with class, whether we would like to give routine classes because he felt that, although he had a bachelors degree, lack of experience with English put him at a severe disadvantage. Although, we would have been happy to comply with his request, we had to politely decline due to lack of time and grueling academics.

We had one more photo of our students working in groups but, apparently, this blog wont allow us to post it up. Therefore, I am forced to end here, and not because I have run out of interesting things to say, because I haven't, you know?

First week of classes

The first week of the literacy program has been phenomenal; I did not expect the students to be as enthusiastic as they were to learn English. I feel that our first week of class went really well, we were able to establish a good baseline of the English levels of the learners. From the first class we were able to tell that the learners were not basic, in fact, most of the learners were at an intermediate level of English. When we first arrived at the class, I made sure to set a tone where the learners didn’t feel like that it was going to be a strict class. I felt that it would have been easier to teach if the learners were comfortable with the environment, and the teachers. Right in the beginning of class I told the class that for them written English should not be a priority, instead I felt that having a focus on conversational English would have been appropriate; 30 minutes into the class I realized that the learners were at a level of English where we were able to work on written English as well.

                A thing that I learned from teaching is that every learner will be at a different level of fluency in English, and that the best way to get a point across is to use the stronger learners as an example. Since the stronger learners were able to speak English quite well, it was a way to loosen up not only the strong students but also the class because they were able to see one of their own friends as an example. Another thing that I learned through teaching is that the class clown can be quite useful because we were able to joke with them and have everyone laugh. As a teacher, I try to use comedy as a tool for teaching, because I find that it is an easy way to get everyone laughing, and used to each other. Knowing that this is one of the few forms of entertainment for the learners, I feel like if I can make them enjoy the class and learn something new, then my job as a teacher has been accomplished.

                As we went around the class, and everyone introduced themselves, it made me feel quite horrible to complain about my life after hearing their stories. Many learners were not able to complete their education, and wished that they were able to do so. This made me appreciate the value of the education that I am receiving here at CMU because not only am I receiving a university education, but I’m at one of the best universities in the world. I also learned how valuable education is from the students, we asked all of them about their lives, and most responded that if they could change one thing; it would be that they would have completed their education. I also learned how important family is for the learners. Most of our class was married and had children and the migrant workers were here to earn money to provide them with a better future. What I was able to understand from the learners was that most of them wanted to provide their children with an education so that they would be able to better their lives.

                I never realized how fast the time would go by when teaching. When the class first began I was a little nervous about what to go over with the class, and how the class was going to go. But as the class progressed I was able to see the direction that the learners wanted to take the class. It was interesting how much improvisation goes into teaching. Since the class was intermediate, and nowhere near basic, the learners were able to speed through the material leaving us with very little material left to teach. It was at that point in the lesson that we start to improvise with a game of hangman before we were able to think of some more difficult material for the class to through. The enthusiasm that the class demonstrated in hangman was incredible. One of the stronger students came back from the break a little late, and without even knowing how to play hangman he volunteered to lead the class through a couple of games. Unfortunately we were running out of time so we were not able to play hangman for no more than 10 minutes. The class really enjoyed our impromptu game of hangman because it was a chance for them to lead the class through an activity, and they enjoyed guessing at words and having their actions show a consequence which in this case was adding a limb to the hanging man.

                I feel that even though we went into the class prepared with what we thought would have taken up the entire two hours, none of the preparation lasted more than 30 minutes because the class was really advanced compared to the level we thought they were at. In general, the experience I had teaching the first week of classes was very nice, and I look forward to teaching these guys who I now consider my friends.