It Ain't Half Hot Mum .... In Saudi Arabia!

Wednesday 22nd April 2009
Well .... fanfare please because I have just finished .... my FIRST FULL WEEK OF TEACHING PROPER!

That makes it over four months between the last lesson I had in Krakow on Friday December 12th 2008 (in the morning) and the first one I did on Saturday 18th April 2009 (first one also in the morning). It is the second longest period (summer times excluded) that I have gone “between classrooms”. No, I am not counting those two lessons I did with the class of Saudi female nurses because, to me, they were just cover lessons. What counts for me is the period between two sets of classes that were exclusively MINE.

Anyway, enough blah-blahs. What you want to know is HOW WAS IT? And especially so after my gloomy forecasts and predictions. And even MORE so after all I have been told about these soldier boy classes and their nightmare statuses.

Well, I'm glad to say that the answer to this is NOT SO BAD! The morning walk over there is not too hot (yet!). And I and the other teacher who I go over there with are still able to go home for lunch when we're done. The teachers' block is on the way when we are coming back from finish time. So why go all the way to the hospital canteen when it is MUCH better to go home, take a proper rest and enjoy a bit of peace.

Peace? Thought you said you liked the canteen food? Well, I DO! But, got to be practical here. In this ever-increasing heat that we are experiencing here, you want to do as little open-air walking as possible. And the walk over to the canteen is just, “A Bridge Too Far”, and .... well, I know you can learn to walk over hot coals without burning yourself but I haven't any idea how to apply this to the “Saudi Sun”.

OK, so what are the students like and how am I coping? As I said, they seem OK as people. As students? Well, yes they are lacking language-wise and they don't retain much of what I do with them and don't have the disciplines that a good student has to stick to. I mean things like they most likely don't look at what we do in the lessons at any time OUTSIDE lesson time. But they need to get into good habits. After all, from September they will become students-proper and will be included in the more regular nurses and medics course in the main building. Perhaps that is something I can work on too.

The main thing is that they are not anti-teacher. And I think their motivation is OK in most cases. They are a mixture of levels from the very low level ones who haven't much sense of the language and probably haven't seen much of the ELT classroom. And it goes up to the ones whose general vocabulary is quite acceptable for an elementary-level student but who are not quite good enough to communicate in full-enough sentences. Not ones which are always grammatically correct anyway. But they are perfectly able to communicate what they want most of the time and they seem to understand what I, the teacher, ask of them. Again, in most cases they obviously HAVE been in an English language classroom somewhere along the line and are aware of the things we make students do like drilling, gap-filling, taking basic notes (though not THAT many do this!)

The problems that I am likely to face most are those of lack of readily available materials to supplement the rather thin books that we are to use with them. As you may recall, the books we have been given are ones made for classes of 7 or 8 year old children. Nice big pictures, very little on each page, nice and slow, nice and easy pace for those poor little kids.

But these are men. Yes, perhaps they are not the most disciplined students I will ever come across in my TEFL life. But they are not the emptyheads that we were led to believe.

I would say that, out of the twelve students that I have seen this week, there are four or maybe five who genuinely ARE weak and/or shy and/or not very self-confident in their language ability. But I have seen no evidence of students who “don't want to be there” amongst that small group.

As I see it, so long as I can keep “jollying them along” and keep them going for most of the time, then all will be OK. What is required is what I do most of the time with most of the students I have and have ever had. And that is to keep an eye on things that come up in lessons that either need more work or interests shown which can be exploited OR to bring in more material on a topic or topics just covered which is 'relevant'. Hehe, but what do I mean by “relevant”? Ahh well .... this is the art of being a teacher, you see. “Relevant” can mean you take a thing as far as it will go without getting ridiculous. Stretch a topic, go off on as many tangents as you feasibly can, and, of COURSE apply the “Three R's Of TEFL” at all times.

“The Three R's?”, you say quizzically. Ahh, yes my friends! Nothing to do with what you did in school! MY three R's of TEFL are .... REPEAT! REVISE! REMIND!

And plenty of it too! And as often as you can get away with!

Now to the books. Well, predictably the students didn't have them yet, and very likely won't have them till next week. Well, that is definitely so since it is the week end now. But the books themselves present another problem – they are not likely to last much more than a month at best, and then there is the cost to the students. Normally this would not be an issue, but since one book set is going to last around a month and they cost money, then this is an excuse for students to delay getting them.

So why use this “baby book” at all, you ask? Well, the problem with English language coursebooks here is simply one of availability. It is no good saying, “Yes, Book X is a good book to use”, if you cannot get that book in this country. The old problem of distribution! Every school has it that I have ever worked in. And students have to buy the books THEMSELVES. Yes, that is normally the case, but it could be made easier for them too.

This week has been mostly supplementation. That is because the students don't have the books yet. In some ways it's OK because it pads the whole thing out a bit more. But it also means I have to think a lot harder! However, as problems go, this is NOT the type of problem that causes as much worry and stress as, for example, sitting around waiting for something-or-nothing to happen. I'd rather have it THIS way thanks! Now at least the way through things is under MY control rather than Those On High.

Four 50-minute lessons a day is a lot for anyone. Couple THAT with doing it five days a week and packing all those four lessons into the morning means that the day gets pretty tiring for them as well as me. Three lesson periods, OK, but the FOURTH one is quite an effort to pull off effectively. There are many tired faces by then!

I am a little concerned that I might use up all available supplementary materials too early. After all, we have 18 weeks in all which works out as around four months and ends mid to end August.

Now .... to some observations and a few interesting happenings. First of all, there are far too often interruptions to the lesson by someone or other in uniform knocking on the door to bark some information in to the students. They are short but uninvited. Isn't the end of lesson possible for such things? I guess not.

And secondly to the most intriguing thing that has happened this week. Now, in the first few lessons there was one guy who sits in the front row who always seemed to be the fastest and first to finish any handed-out exercise I gave the class. He seems rather older than the others too. This got me suspicious, and even more so because in the third and fourth lesson periods he is basically sitting there asleep and not taking part at all. I ignore it basically – I'm not his mother and it is up to HIM if he wants to waste his time. Sleeping in class is annoying but not as bad as excessive noise. However, TODAY was different.

Lesson period one .... he comes in twenty minutes late. Now, the way we mark the attendance register here is “Present” or “Absent”. There is no mark for someone who is “Late”. In other words, as we have been instructed, if somebody is “Late” then we must mark that person as “Absent”. And if they then turn up later then TOO BAD!

So in he comes 20 minutes late and I've already marked him absent together with one other guy who is genuinely absent (and the other three absentees who haven't been here all week!). “Where have you been?”, I ask him and his excuse I don't really care for anyway as his sleeping in class doesn't make me like him or want to listen to him much. I tell him I've marked him absent and he pleads with me to take it out. I refuse. He sits down anyway. Lesson period two .... this time he wanders in TEN MINUTES LATE! And STILL he asks he if I can remove his absence, which again I refuse to do.

The long break comes, then it is time for lesson period three. I have just got started, when there is a knock at the door and a smiling Saudi in uniform asks if he can speak to me a moment. I leave the students something to do then go out to speak to him. His face is new to me – he is not the supervisor I have seen before. He says he is (some kind of) student supervisor or welfare advisor or some other thing. Mentions the fact that I have marked this student absent. Yes, I said, since he was twenty minutes and ten minutes late in my lessons so far. Well, this guy says, this student is the 'supervisor' of the two classes and has other duties which he must do as well as attending ....

So please could I NOT MARK HIM AS ABSENT!

As I suspected all along! He is there as supervisor and as monitor! Some of his questions had been a little odd. On the first day (and I don't remember how this topic came up) he asked me if I was a Muslim. I said no, then he asked if I was a Christian. I quickly said that we do not discuss such a topic and he should know why. Another incident occurred when I was doing Rooms Of The House and was onto the Bedroom. Now, perhaps this was asking for it, but as with all the other rooms in the house I asked the students to tell me what we can do there. “You can f**** your wife!”, he said, smiling. “Write it down please!”. No, of course I didn't. There was not much amusement on other students' faces, and nobody joined in his little “joke” (maybe they didn't understand him .... thank goodness!)

He obviously knows more English than the others. On the first two days I had to sign some piece of paper to verify I had been there and had been on time. Why, I have no idea, but it was obviously his role to be there to check up on me, on the class, on the lesson material and on the lessons in general. And to try to trip me up whenever he could, but he failed at THAT!

So .... as you can see, this guy can now do as he pleases and he can wander in any old time he likes and I can do nothing about it. So go ahead! Sleep all lesson for all I care!

Now, I'm advancing things here, but I forgot to say what happened at the very BEGINNING of the week when we turned up at the appointed time (7.30am) ready to get going with LESSON 1 DAY 1. Well, as you can probably guess, NOTHING happened. There were no students and no idea of where they were or when they would come. Other students had mid-term testing on that day but they were not OUR students. When would our classes begin? To me it was obvious that nothing would happen that day at all if the past five weeks was anything to go but. Fortunately I was proved wrong – however, we had to wait until the middle of lesson period 3 (about 8.45am) until FINALLY the classes were ready. Delays Delays Delayzzzzzzz ....

So .... the weekly routine has been established. Go over to the lesson place (a five minute morning walk), do the lessons, go home for lunch, wander back into the office some time after 12.30pm, do the lesson planning for the next day(s) and then go home again. Not bad, is it? Of course, when it gets REALLY hot later on then we will have to make more use of the little bus that runs between this lesson centre and the college. But that will mean no going home for lunch. Still, practicals in the burning heat must be applied. My poor white European skin depends on it!

Next week is a holiday .... but not for myself or the other new teacher. Number One – we can't have one anyway due to the contract's stipulation of “five months till you can have holidays”. And Number Two – these military lessons go on through the holiday period. Well, it is only a holiday period because it is the mid-term break for the regular nursing and medical classes. Most other teachers are going away to various exotic lands for the week. The teachers' staffroom will be open but only with a key that we have borrowed. Well, basically it will be a nice easy week and I won;t be breaking by back much in the afternoon to get to the office and back. Just go home for lunch, take my time, go to the office to do photocopying and then go home again.

It's leisure time .... but not as we know it!