when things go wrong...

I've discovered something interesting about myself and teaching: it doesn't matter how great my plans for class may be, or how much I've planned for a specific lecture; if something is off with me or with my students, class is going to be dreadful. End of story.

Take today, for example. I was prepared (ok, it wasn't my best lesson ever, but at least I wasn't totally improvising) and in a moderately decent mood when I arrived. But then I apparently made the fatal mistake of returning some tests to my students as class started. They instantly went into convulsions of despair over their low scores while I tried to get their attention to explain exactly what went wrong. Then, of course, they asked all the hardest questions about the test, so I had difficulty explaining the answers, causing me to become a bit flustered, and them to become more confused.

Not exactly the best start to the day.

And then one of my students who just so happens to be one of the ditsiest (and bustiest, in case you were wondering) people I've ever met kept asking questions about 3 minutes too late, confusing the rest of the students and totally throwing me off guard. To make matters worse, 50% of my class never has any idea what I'm saying, and the other 50% is brilliant and gets bored with me repeating myself over and over and over again for the dummies. Today happened to be one of those days that the dumb and dumber couldn't get any...dumber.

Oh, and did I mention that I happen to have a blushing problem that seems to resurface whenever I'm not feeling like myself (and sometimes when I am), or when I'm irritated, or excited, or awkward, or really feeling any emotion at all. Well, I do. And it's always a disaster because once I start blushing, it never stops.

So I'm not sure if it was me or them, or perhaps a combination of the two (or maybe it has something to do with the phase of the moon), but today was definitely not one of my better days as an ESL teacher. I ended class with an overwhelming desire to throttle their scrawny little necks (shoving their faces in the sand is also a good option) until they stopped speaking Korean or Japanese or Spanish and started speaking English. Honestly- do they really think they're going to learn English if they never bother to SPEAK it?!

And I seriously thought about dropping their scores by 10 points.

Or making the final 5 pages longer.

Or giving them 2 pop quizzes tomorrow. HA!

On another note, yesterday one of T-rav's Nepali refugees taught me how to make aloo masala (curried potatoes) and then gave me a Nepali marriage necklace, bracelets, a red Hindu dot between my eyes, and one in my hairline that signifies marriage. Actually, the 9 year old daughter attempted to give me the marriage dot first, but ended up slipping with the ink and temporarily dyed a nice patch of my hair a lovely shade of burgundy. Then her mother tried to fix it, but I still ended up with a nice streak in my hair until I washed it out (it only took 3 shampooing attempts).

I really do love my students. Most of the time.