Having 200 students (98 in one and 102
in the other) has, so far, been a thrilling ride made up of equal
parts of downright terror and incomprehensible hilarity. The first
time I walked into my classroom, I felt a desire to A) run away B)
throw up a little C) cry. The sheer number of students is so immense
that it literally takes your breathe away and its no wonder that so
many students fail or redouble classes...as a teacher you literally
have ZERO time to give individual attention to all the students, you
can pick a good chunk of kids from each class to spend more time with
but its difficult to deal with the thought that some kids you just
simply have to let fail. Its not right and its certainly not fair but
teachers are far and few in between in most villages which results in
bigger (huuuger) classroom sizes.
Like any other classroom in the world,
some students try really hard and others don't. Here are some of my
favorite responses from a “get-to-know-the-students-better”
questionnaire I gave my students the first week of class, some of
them just grammatically hilarious and others terrifying:
How old are you?
I am fine, how are you?
What is your favorite subject?
My favorite is Ms. Zazie.
(Sawyer is too difficult for them to
pronounce...and yes, I was tempted to give this kid points for
sucking up)
What is your favorite animal?
My favorite animal is to eat the dog.
(Kind of an error....Welcome to BF)
How many brothers and sisters do you
have?
I have six fathers...one is donkey.
(Uumm...)
What did you buy at the market?
I buy the childrens and a water. (Uummm
again...)
What is the purpose and importance
of the verb “To do”?
The “to do” verb is important
because it is interesting.
There are many times where my students
will push my buttons but half of the time I can't help but cracking
up at their attempts to speak broken English...the things they say
sometimes, I swear...my stern demeanor is completely undermined all
the time. I found that most students are so terrified of their
teachers because lets face it, teachers here have a LOT on their
plates with the number of students so classroom management is
something they have no patience to work torwards with the
students. Its either shut
up, sit down, get out of the class, go home, you get -5 points, etc.
Positive reenforcement is not really a thing here. I have had very
little major classroom management problems and I solely attribute
this to being scared of being mean and not being liked by my kids so
I have come up with a few strategies to reward the well-behaved
students rather than only punishing the few stragglers and I have
found that the class time we have together has become pretty
enjoyable and oftentimes fun! I allow the students some freedoms that
they otherwise do not have in other classes...like cracking a
harmless joke once in a while.
Some other interactions:
Me : How do you say 'pen' in the
plural?
Student #46: Pennes
Me : Almost but nooooo...someone else?
Student #12: Penis?
Me : Uh...what?
Student #33: Madam, he said
'penis'...thats how you say it!
Me: Uh, no, no thats not correct. The
correct answer is 'Pens'. You just add 's' to the end to make it
plural. Okay, someone come write up on the board a sentence with the
word 'pen' in the plural.
Students #87: comes to the board,
writes – The penis is red.
Me: Whaaaat? No no no. Why is there
'is', its ---- ah nevermind. Do you guys even know what that means?
Class: No Ms. Zazie.
Me: Oh.....okay, well its not a word in
English. Mooooooooving on.
Class: So its not 'penis' its 'pens',
got it.
Me: *sigh
I also allot a 15 minute
ask-Ms.Zazie-how-to-say-anything-in-English break at the end of the
week for the students to ask things that we may not cover in class
but that they've heard in movies or songs, or simply things they want
to learn to say. I have found that designating a topic for these
sessions has been the best strategy to avoid the super awkward and
inappropriate and sometimes vulgar (thank you Lil Wayne) questions.
The first time I did this, the kids went crazy with the questions on
American rap music (and keep in mind these are all asked in French
and sometimes broken English):
Ms. Zazie, what does “gun” mean?
How do you get tattoos like Lil Wayne? Whats the word for “blood”?
How do you say “Je veux t'embrasser?” (translation – how do you
say “I want to kiss you?”) What is a “whore”? ......
The list goes on and on. After I got
massacred by questions I DID NOT want to answer, I decided that I
would have to give the students boundaries for what they can and
cannot ask me. The easiest way to do this was to give them a topic
each time, innocent as possible. Like: sports, animals, family, life
in America versus Burkina, countries, etc. This has helped minimize
the damage!
For a first time teacher, being thrown
into such large class sizes has forced me to think on my feet and
multitask like never before. Even with only 6 months of experience so
far, I tell myself that if I can handle 100 students at once, piled
on each other 4 to a desk and stepping over each other to get to the
back at times, then I can handle anything Burkina Faso has to throw
at me. Bring it on!
