16 Sept 2011
My second day working as a Teaching Assistant was much better than my first day! While I was still mostly observing as I figuring out the workings of the class, I felt like I was also more useful! It's hard for me to sit there observing when I'd like to be helping students. However, as a TA, I'm in an awkward situation. I'm not actually the teacher so it's not up to me how the class runs. Nevertheless, I'm not a student, and as an English speaker I have some expertise in the English language that I'd like to share.
Today, I introduced myself in English to the older kids. I passed around some pictures of me in the United States to show them what home is like for me. I tried to include some pictures of things like snow (because it doesn't snow here!), Halloween (because they don't celebrate it here), and my family. The students asked me loads of questions!
Kids--no matter what country you are in--want to know the same things. I got the usual questions you get from kids: how old are you? what's your favorite color? However, I also got some weird ones. I had a picture of me as a kid and one student asked if the man in the picture was my marido (husband). I explained that no, it was a picture of me as a kid with my sister and my dad. In another class, a student asked if I was the sister of the English teacher (because we both speak English?).
Later, I helped one of the teachers by practicing numbers with the students. Part of the purpose of my doing this is to give student the opportunity to hear a legitimate accent in English. I think it's really helpful for the students for two reasons. First, neither of the teachers I'm working with are native speakers of English. Second, the book and audio that the teachers use is British English. I can't even begin to tell you how much it's driving me crazy to hear all these British English phrases--like "He's got a ball. He's got brown hair."
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