Here you go, James: my first piece of serious reflection on this job, written by Mykel Board who also teaches English in Mongolia. He expresses many of my doubts, questions, and answers about what I am getting into... click the title "Guilt of an English teacher" to check it out!
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13 years ago
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Good advice this is: "When you teach English, ask students to speak and write about their daily lives."
ReplyDeleteYes. Writing that final statement about "how much of the child's life is allowed into the classroom" set me thinking about that some time ago. Now I need to see how all that I wrote about does or does not translate into actual practice in the classroom... there comes the tough part!
ReplyDeleteI also liked the advice to make an effort to learn their language. When we gave english workshops in the mexican village this summer, we balanced them out by requesting nahuatl workshops. We just wanted to make it easier and more fun for us to assimilate into village life; an interesting side-effect was that many of the kids there suddenly began re-evaluating their relationship to a language that was increasingly becoming out of fashion.
So yeah, I am taking a survival Mongolian course when i get there, and those kids are telling me stories about their country! :)