First Class

I just got back from teaching my first ESL class since I left the ESL Institute at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse.  For a first day, it went well and very fast.  If I had paced the classes as I had intended, both would have gone over by 10 minutes.  I guess I should explain my classes first.

I teach the same students in the same room for two classes under the umbrella name of Text Skills.  Except for the first two days, the first class (essay writing) starts at 1:30pm and ends at 2:45pm, and the second class (reading, vocabulary, and grammar) starts at 3:00pm and ends at 4:15pm.  Perhaps these classes feel rushed because I'm used to 60 or 90 minute classes as opposed to 75 minutes.

For the first 2 weeks, I'll have 11 students in my classes and then I'll have 12 throughout the rest of the 6-week program.  Of the 12, I have 6 Japanese men, 2 Thai women, 1 Chinese woman, 1 Cambodian woman, 1 Bengali man, and 1 Uzbek man.  For the most part, the students seemed to be getting along quite well.  The biggest challenge for me seems to be understanding the accents I'm not used to hearing.  From my teaching experience, my first impression is most similar to my UWL classes, especially the essay writing classes.

These students differ from most of my UWL students in that they are older and thus more mature.  Most of my mature students at UWL were the MBA students, and many students here are business or economics students as well.  Their level of understanding the EAP (English for Academic Purposes) classroom culture is considerably higher than my UWL students, and most of them are able to follow my sense of humor.  I've kept my humor quite light as this is a very serious program.

I feel as if I have established a good rapport with about half the class, which is quite good for the first day.  It usually takes the first week or two to get to that level.  I have already noticed a student or two that I may have to work on for better rapport.  For now, I just assume they are serious and concentrating students.  To give you a hint of who they are, they are from a culture I'm not familiar teaching in.

My classroom is one of the nicer classrooms that I have taught in.  It has more than enough room for 12 students and me.  It's equipped with a computer and an overhead project, but neither are built into the room.  For now, there seems to be plenty of writing utensils for both chalkboard and whiteboard.  I won't be using them too much myself as I'm continuing the University of Iowa College of Education's paperless program.  All my handouts are online for the students to access.  And I made my lesson plans accessible to the students once the class is completed, so they can refer to them as notes.

The worst thing about the classroom is the temperature.  You can feel a slight cool breeze from the air conditioning, but it's not enough to halt a sweat.  Because of the nuclear reactor crisis at Fukushima, the whole country is conserving its energy, so this is how IUJ helps in the effort.  Although I was mildly sweating in the class, once I stepped out into the hall, it turned into a medium sweat.  The pores completely flushed when I stepped outside.  I haven't been in this type of environment since Korea, but Korea's only this bad for a few weeks.  It's like this for months in Japan.