In the Classroom

Tuesday I observed three classes: third grade (which is the first year of mandatory English), sixth grade, and tenth grade.
The tenth graders were reading the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling. They were going through it quite quickly, and no one was asking questions. At first, I was really impressed with their reading level. There were some comprehension questions after the poem but not many volunteers to answer them. Those that would volunteer struggled to make simple sentences in English, and needed a lot of coaching in Armenian.
It became clear to me that the state-mandated curriculum for tenth graders assumes the kids are reading and comprehending at a wildly exaggerated rate than they actually are. Not to mention the fact that of all the things a fifteen-year-old who goes to America might want to communicate with others about, I'm guessing Kipling is not high on the list.
I agree with Sara that the books are stupid, to use her word. Her biggest problem with the books, however, is that they aren't arranged logically and do not teach grammar in a way that she, as a language teacher, thinks makes sense.

Although she got through a few pages of the book and is on-track with state expectations for curricular progress...many of the kids were lost and at least 25% were wholly checked out. (To be fair, 25% understand English pretty well, but even native speakers struggle to understand Kipling's poetry!)
The system is arranged so that kids have Armenian classes right from first grade, like we have English classes. In second grade they begin Russian and in third grade, English. To accommodate this in their schedules, students have Russian and English twice a week for forty minutes. Russian is clearly useful in this part of the world; whereas, English is not so much because they have almost no opportunity to practice. Nonetheless, I think kids should have the option of choosing either English or Russian and studying the one language four times each week.
Continuity with a foreign language is so important. I remember taking a Hindi course that met for four hours every Saturday. Having the intensive day was awesome, but my life was totally Hindi-free until the next Saturday, and most of what I gained one week was lost by the next.

The School Library

However, I understand that teachers (in a small school, in a small city, in a very poor area that has yet to recover from the 1988 earthquake) aren't really able to effect a revolution and overthrow the government's education plan. But I think there could be solutions in the classroom.


When I taught the tenth graders on Wednesday, there was a three-paragraph passage about Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo. The first paragraph actually said, "When we think of brotherly love, two names often come to mind: Vincent and Theo Van Gogh." How absurd!!! Um, yeah, those two names have absolutely never come to my mind, no matter what I was thinking about.
I realized that trying to get the kids to understand each word in each paragraph was a ridiculous endeavor and would take all of our time, so I pulled out a few phrases that I thought represented the theme of the essay. We read the sections that contained those phrases--probably about 1/3 of the essay. I skipped the second paragraph in its entirety. Then we used those phrases to construct our own sentences. In my mind, this was more useful than tediously trying to struggle through a confusing heap of irrelevant facts and vocabulary.
I'm not sure Sara really thinks I covered those pages (it's true that I cheated), but perhaps I can bring her around to my pedagogy when we discuss it at length this afternoon as we plan for tomorrow's lessons.
I will blog about the lessons with the sixth and eleventh graders in a separate post. Must get ready for the day--which should be quick since I missed my "water window" and can't shower.