How to Manage a Class and Other Things I Googled

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So, first things first, I passed my language proficiency exam which means I started another language class, Bahasa Jawa. That’s the language a lot of people at my permanent site speak. It’s very similar and very different all at once, and I’m mostly just always confused in class. But I have caught my host parents using a few words in Bahasa Jawa so somehow I am learning something. All of the language facilitators are awesome!! I had two for Bahasa Indonesia who were great, and another teacher for Bahasa Jawa who is equally awesome. Learning new languages is fun and stressful, kind of like everything in Peace Corps so far. It’s also kind of weird because I *just* figured out how to get to my first language class without using google maps, literally the last week of class, and now I’m going somewhere totally new and further away. Yeah, it took me like 6 weeks to remember how to get somewhere I go everyday, I’m aware that’s an issue. This week was the first Thanksgiving away from home. It didn’t feel like Thanksgiving at all here, which is weird but I think it also made me less sad. We had lunch with the ambassador. My Thanksgiving dinner was fried rice with eggs and fried noodles that my amazing Ibu made. During the week of Thanksgiving all of the Peace Corps trainees had Model School. This is where Peace Corps pairs us up and has us teach a class every day of the week. We had language class from 7-11:30, and then a class about how to teach English, and then we had to teach English in the afternoon. These were looooooooong days. Here’s the thing though, we don’t have an Indonesian counterpart in the room with us. This is weird for a few reasons.

1- We have no idea what the students are learning in class, or have learned. So if we decided to do a lesson about body parts, for all we know, they did the exact same lesson earlier that day in their real English class.

2- We aren’t filling the slot of their actual class. The students are staying an extra hour and a half after their normal day so some bulehs can teach them English with zero context for why we’re doing this or how it effects them.

3- None of us are fluent in Bahasa Indonesia, so that makes managing the classroom very difficult. At our permanent sites we will have counterparts. Not only that, but we will know what they’re learning because we will be their English teachers, and we’ll have the authority to run a classroom. We can give extra homework, provide real incentives, send them to the principal, etc etc etc. We had none of that this week.

All of this to say, my friend and I were in charge of 30 kids, who were 12 years old, being forced to stay 90 minutes longer than their normal day, during their exam week, and we don’t even speak the same language. Successya! It was challenging to say the absolute least. The kids we had are so great, and I am so happy to have worked with them, and considering the circumstances they actually did pretty well. But a couple of things stand out.

For example, on the first day, while my fellow volunteer was teaching, and I was walking around the room trying to make students behave, one student pulled out a guitar and started playing in the middle of class. I went to stand next to her to try to intimidate her into stopping, and she just smiled at me and continued playing. I don’t think she even knew I was trying to make her stop, like it hadn’t occurred to her that she shouldn’t be doing her one woman show in the middle of class. At one point a student pulled the pin out of another students Hijab and threw it across the room. One student put another in a head lock, and every now and then someone would run out the door and say “Goodbye Miss, I am going to Thailand” and then they would just return whenever they felt it was appropriate. Also, in the middle of teaching, students would just shout out things that they knew how to say in English. Examples: “I LIKE SOCCER”-“WHAT IS YOUR RELIGION”-“WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK” and “WHERE DO YOU SLEEP”. They were never related to the lesson we were working on. One student tried to charge his vape during our class. Before we could confiscate/acknowledge it, he threw it back into his bag and acted like he didn’t know what we were talking about. The behaviour got progressively better throughout the week, and we came up with better ways to manage the class. We translated some ground rules in Bahasa Indonesia and that seemed to help. We also brought in candy to try to incentivize (bribe) them into participating and answering questions-it worked. We also used as many interactive activities (games) as possible to keep them constantly engaged and moving, and came up with a seating chart. They treated us exactly the way US students treat substitutes, only if the substitutes couldn’t speak English and didn’t have to report back to the real teacher.

There were also a lot of endearing and sweet moments, like when they shy students got up the courage to read something out loud in English, or when we could see them having fun and actually learning and practicing speaking English with the games we used. We also had them write about their favorite activities and draw pictures, and make family trees. The results were hilarious and cute and so fun to read. They are so smart, and most of them tried really hard to apply the language and usually did so successfully. It felt good knowing we were able to get some key points across in such a hectic environment, and I do ultimately feel more confident in my ability to teach. I ended the week with a trip to a nearby mountain/park area with my host family. I am so thankful for them and their support. It was a lot of fun! We also went to a small museum that I’m hoping I can find some information about online, and I got to watch a traditional dance. It was very interesting, and there was a narrator who I think was describing the story of the dance. He had a loud creepy laugh that would happen every time the bad guy (or at least what I think was the bad guy, a person carrying a big sculpture of a rat) came out. I was delighted and confused all at once, the laugh was like the one at the end of Thriller. Lastly, when my host family and I went to the mountain we also went out to eat and got lele, which is catfish. I told my Ibu that we call it catfish in America because of the whiskers and she thought it was the funniest thing ever. She laughed and laughed. Later when we were walking to the mountain, apropos of nothing, she just shook her head and said “catfish” and started laughing again. It was the cutest thing ever. I also texted her one day to tell her I would be home late and didn’t need dinner, and she texted me back “Ok, I will make spaghetti. Please eat again.” She’s so funny and takes great care of me. This week and next we are doing school practicums and then we swear in! We’re getting closer and closer to actually starting our service. I can’t wait!