Dual Perception

As I've mentioned in prior posts, I'm teaching at Aquinas University in Colombo. I teach 7 different English classes, Tuesday through Friday, and on the weekends from 8:30am to 4:30pm I assist with the IT courses. My students from my English classes treat me and see me completely differently from the students in the IT courses.

For instance, during the week I wear a sari, I'm actually conducting the courses and even to my surprise I'm a good teacher. On the weekends, I don't wear a sari aka I look just like a student, I literally just sit there and if I'm lucky there will be lab time and I can help them complete their exercises. Basically, during the week I'm a teacher and on the weekend I'm a worthless human being. My IT students don't try to talk to me, they enter complete silence when I walk into a room, they are disrespectful towards me and think that I don't do anything which I don't blame them. My English students, say hi to me, sometimes have a conversation with me, are attentive in my class and they respect my intentions. 

I'm thinking about stopping the IT on the weekends since I don't do anything, and I already work the entire week for 12 hours straight each day so why spend my weekend stuck in a classroom doing nothing? I was actually thinking about this on Sunday and getting mad at myself for even being there. The family had left for Rathnapura for the weekend. I could have been in Rathnapura, or I could have slept in for once. 

My angst for IT aside, I love teaching my English classes. The teachers give me the freedom to teach the course in my innovative ways, the students are accustomed to such structure in their course materials that they are caught off guard when I switch up the game. It's a great experience for both myself and the students. The students aren't accustomed to my American accent in English and it's new for me to explain or give directions in Sinhala when they don't understand. Apparently, I'm very out-of-the-box because I'm loud and I use motions and physical sounds or jokes to make sense of different speeches and words. 

The ages of my students vary from 15 to 20 something. Most of them are 17 just out of O-levels and doing classes before their A-levels or just out of A-levels. Some of my classes go seamlessly and the others need some structure. I just finished my first full week of teaching. The English staff loves me and is impressed with me and I honestly adore them as well. It's a love/love relationship. I know a few of them were skeptical of me at first because I hadn't taught before but after I taught one of their classes, they congratulated me and told me how impressed they were. Which is good for me because I don't have any other feedback to work off of, since my students I feel even if they hated my teaching would pretend and say yes it's great anyway. 

In one of my classes when I was doing attendance, I was pronouncing the last names with an American accent. The students were laughing, I looked up and sternly said in Sinhala "Why are you laughing?" rhetorical of course. There was some ignorance that needed to be addressed. My one rule in the class is that you can't speak when someone else is speaking. Mostly because they all speak in such light whispers when they speak in English that I can barely hear their voices over the roar of the fans and the traffic from the main road. Anyway, I stood up to continue the lesson and I said half in English and half in Sinhala"I may speak with an accent when I speak in Sinhala but you speak with an accent when you speak English. You're laughing at me, but if you went to the U.S. or anywhere else would you like it if people laughed at you? I treat you with respect so I expect you to treat me with the same respect, if that's going to be a problem- let me know." The entire room was silent, I was partly shaking and so ashamed for them that I had to hold my composure before I could continue the lesson. I knew the ones that were laughing at me, mainly the girls, felt ashamed but only because I called them out on it. If I let it slide, they would have never even realized they had done anything wrong. Everytime I teach my class, it reminds me of my Spanish classes from high school, where few read with the proper accent. Comparing it to an actual second language course, helps me understand the point of view of my students and the confused look they give me sometimes when I speak too fast or use words they are unfamiliar with. 

I have other days where my students impress me, one of my final classes, I assigned them a debate on the significance of Sri Lankan Culture and the Sinhalese language versus Western Modernization and the English language. The room was set-up in a circle, unorthodox; I split the circle in half for the debate, unorthodox; I gave them the debate topic that day and allotted 20 minutes to get their points together, unorthodox; I told them everyone had to speak once before anyone else could speak again, unorthodox; I flipped a coin to choose who would go first, unorthodox; I sat on my desk during their debate, unorthodox....They spoke clearly, loudly, gave excellent points, spoke for at least 3 minutes, improvised and didn't read straight from their notes, that too was unorthodox but I was highly impressed. 

Each class and interaction, I'm able to become more human and less an alien to the students at Aquinas. Each class and interaction, I'm able to see a face and name to my students, rather than look at them as a collective unit of eyes following me in my every movement. We become real people to each other and less like outsiders to each other's worlds. For 2 hours on one day a week, our world is the same and during that period of time we are insiders.