Teaching At Last

That’s two days actual teaching behind us now.

Until the arrival of T3, next week, perhaps, inshallah, whenever, I’ve got two classes, three hours from 8.30am, and then a break, and then another class 12 – 3pm.

The first class are nine in number, and the placement test and my observations over the next few days suggest that they’re Upper Int. The only problem is the Brokeback Mountain factor: two students who keep writing little notes on their jotters to each other, and whispering and giggling; this morning, I saw one of them remove a stray hair from his friend’s face, as a wife or lover would to a man. Nothing wrong with any of that, per se, except that they’re a pair of religious bigots, and a complaining pair of bastards to boot. I think I’ve managed to curtail the pillow talk, for now anyways.

The other class are more difficult. They have bees in their bonnets about being the only afternoon class. This has led them to be annoyed about every aspect of the course. I had a difficult hour or two today. One of them was raising his voice, and this led me to do the same. This would be totally unacceptable in England, no doubt, but shouting is the way of expressing dissatisfaction here.

By the end of the lesson, we were all on terms, and I shook hands with the shouter after he apologised for losing his temper. I privately restored my good humour by naming them The Addams Family – it’s a small class, some of them are a bit odd, and frankly their cussedness spooked me.

They do have several legitimate grievances – some bureaucratic nightmare regarding their wages in particular, I’m told – and it’s natural if unreasonable that I should get caught in the crossfire.

T2 has her own class, and is out of the road for now. Mostly she’s ok, but other times she’s just weird. Like yesterday, the first day of teaching in a new place for everyone, and I said to her, “Which classroom would you like?” And she said, “Why?”