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it has just been waiting for me |
04 April 2008
it's odd what a couple of days off can do to your state of mind. not always in a particularly good way. as long as i can remember i've always found being isolated somewhere rather worrying. i begin to feel cut off from the rest of the world, and uncertain as to whether it is still really there. or i begin to think that something must be happening - something big, that i haven't been told about. terribly paranoid of course, but these things begin to creep into my head in the moments between being busy. of course i like and need my alone time, but i also like to have other people to bounce off, to keep my sense of perspective on things. it helps.i am, however, grateful for the short break. i've been feeling particularly tired just recently, and rather irritated by the response of some of the students to my attempts to teach them anything. it doesn't upset me as much as i find it annoying. patience, particularly when it is with other people's stupid behaviour, has never been my strongest point. i can't help feeling that it is a waste for a school like this to have native english teachers when their students are at such a terribly elementary level. i suspect that the help of an anglophone teacher or assistant is only really effective above a certain level of linguistic skill. below this level, basic communication becomes extremely difficult. when i think that there must be hundreds of students with better english and a better attitude who could benefit far more from my help even just in this city, i feel particularly frustrated. i have a lot to offer as an assistant to english learning. i have a strong grasp of spelling, grammar and linguistic convention, and a vast array of lovely idiomatic language to teach, but for a student who can barely string three words together in english there is little i can do beyond what their chinese-born english teacher can teach. and given that i don't have sufficient command of chinese language and culture to tell them to shut up and listen because this is important, the chinese teacher would arguably be preferable. sigh. utterly utter [
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