The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Today’s reading was about a woman who was driving with a cat on top of her car. Another guy on the road spotted the cat and tried to tip her off. She freaked out when she noticed he was following her. She turned left, and she turned right, but she couldn’t shake the creep, so she drove to the police station. An officer told her about the cat and suddenly the man seemed less of a villain.

It’s interesting to think about the cultural appropriateness of this story. Most of the students are learning English so that they can attend an American university, but Yousef* is a little bit older and already has a career as a math teacher. He is here chaperoning a cohort of Saudi women. By “chaperoning”, I mean he accompanies them EVERYWHERE they go. He actually didn’t come to class today, but I kept wondering what he would think of this woman, driving alone (well, besides the cat), being followed by a strange man.

I think I mentioned that I would be teaching for the first half of class today. Well, I did and it went pretty well. Here are some highlights:

• The Good: I managed the heck out of the time. This is something I tend to struggle with, so it is a success I’m particularly proud of. 

• The Bad (well, not bad exactly, just not fantastic): I designed a cloze activity for the students to do with a partner. I found a stylized local map online that included key buildings and landmarks, and indicated a starting location. Then for half the class, I whited out a few place names. I whited out a few different place names for the other half of the class. Students with mismatched maps were to pair up and practice giving each other directions. Once they knew where a certain place was, they were to fill in the missing place names on their maps. 

• I was hoping it would be communicative. It was. They talked. They exchanged information. This was good.

• I was hoping it would be challenging. It was. They had to use English for an extended period of time. They had to listen and pronounce things carefully (one pair got hung up on a misunderstanding of “straight” as “street”). They had to use new vocabulary and grammatical structures. The trouble was, understanding what they were supposed to be doing was also a HUGE challenge. And it took a looooooooong time. Even after several different attempts on my part, some of them were completely in the dark until their more astute classmates clued them in in Arabic. 

• I was hoping it would be relevant. I used a local map. I thought they might learn something about their new city. Mustafa* took one look at the map and exclaimed, “What is this?!?!” “It’s a map,” I said. “But everyone have GPS,” he countered. “I don’t.” “Everyone have iPhone!” “I don’t. I use a map.” He gave me a look of utter incredulity and said, “I buy you iPhone tomorrow.” 

• The Ugly: I didn’t call on all the students equally. Samir* was particularly left out. He doesn’t often volunteer answers in class, and I didn’t  solicit his participation much… because I forgot his name.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.