A reflection on learning to teach...

I was just looking through some pictures from a few years back and came across two pictures that I hadn't looked at since I was a student teacher. The biggest reason for this is the fact that I'm no longer a student teacher and haven't had to critically analyze anyone's work in the time I've spent as a substitute teacher. Looking at this also made me realize that maybe I wasn't such a bad student teacher after all. The following two pictures are from the poetry unit I did with my sixth grade students. I'm actually blown away by how well these students captured the poems I assigned to them.

"A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

I think my teaching classes also made me paranoid about copyright and fair use laws, but hopefully no one will take offense to my using such amazing poems to showcase just how awesome students can be. As much as I am loving being able to teach abroad, I do have a certain amount of frustration that I am not able to teach in the States and further pursue exploring literature with a class of my own...

And a month has now passed...

...since I first left Portland and I sometimes feel as if I'm still waiting for the full gravity of how far I am away from home to hit me. My other thought is that maybe it already has, and it wasn't as climactic as what I initially anticipated. I think it is easy to sometimes confuse what you think you should feel with what you actually do. Bleh, this is not the venue for going into a stream of conscience ramble about the complexity of emotional thought (well, it would have been a ramble if I had kept typing the last five minutes of what was going on through my brain, but I'm keeping the babble filter on while writing about my time in Taiwan).

Well, now that it's taken me twenty minutes to write a short paragraph about my self-assumed subdued emotional reaction to a new environment, I suppose I will move on. But first let us pause for a moment of inspiration:



Taipei is amazing. I feel incredibly lucky to be here, and that is further accentuated by my getting to work in what has so far been (and by so far, I'm not assuming it will change, it's just a reflection on things so far) a very positive and supportive environment to teach in. The last two weeks were the first in which I had a regular teaching schedule and was really able to start interacting with students and get a feel for what their English speaking level is, and if the lessons I had prepared would be effective.

Before I go too far into talking about the teaching itself, I should probably give a little background about my school. Penglai is a public elementary school that is in its third year of having foreign teachers as part of its English Wonderland. There are six teachers that teach as part of this program, three foreign teachers (Me, Dan, and Willem), and three from Taiwan (Renee, Minhsien, and Linda). Of us six, Minhsien is the only teacher to have been at Penglai for all three years of the English Wonderland program.

While we do teach regular lessons, the thing that sets Penglai apart from almost all other schools in Taipei, is the scenario center on the top floor of the school. The goal (or my interpretation anyway) of Penglai's English language program is to give students exposure to real world scenarios and give them the vocabulary and potential dialogue necessary to interact in English in one of these scenarios (such as a restaurant, clothes store, airport, etc.). Each class is split into two forty minute periods, with a short break in between. I can't make a sweeping generalization about what my overall teaching style is going to be, but so far I have been using the first period to focus on vocab and introduce the dialogue in the regular classrooms set aside for us,



and have been using the second period to try and get the students into the scenario center (below is the clothes store).



I have been very impressed with the students' participation in acting out the scenarios with each other and being willing to volunteer (I use that term loosely, as I am more than willing to volunteer students if necessary) to perform in front of their peers. I am fully aware of how difficult learning a second language is, and their engagement in the lessons so far has been very encouraging. Penglai's English program is a cyclical process, and students spend four weeks on a scenario, and then move onto the next one. I keep teaching the same scenarios to the same grade levels, but I will be working with different students throughout the semester.

Everything is still very new, and I find myself frequently updating my lesson as I try them in the classroom and see what works and what doesn't. After a summer of not working with kids, it's definitely been a re-learning process in establishing classroom management strategies and trying to make my lesson both fun and informative. Luckily, I have a whole school year to keep improving. Oh yeah, and thank you PowerPoint for helping me create visually effective vocabulary lessons.

Other highlights of my time in Taipei over the last couple of weeks have included seeing temples:





Getting out of the city proper:





and exploring relics of a country's complex colonial history:



This last month has been a very positive start, and it only leaves me looking forward to the rest of the year ahead, and what may lay beyond it...

The first two weeks...

The first two weeks I was in Taiwan passed in a flash of activity that involved having my first day at work a little over 48 hours after landing. Students were still on break, and we started out having half days. Work consisted of looking at some of the lesson plans from last year, but more importantly, finding a permanent place to live as hostel living had lost most of the charm it had during my Europe adventure ten years ago. Also, one a.m. disruptions from dorm mates when you have work in the morning prove to be rather unpleasant.

Each day I would spend several hours looking through apartment listing and having one of the Taiwanese teachers that work in the Penglai Elementary English Wonderland department (there are three: Linda, Minhsien, and Renee) call the landlord for me, as most of them did not speak English. If the apartment was still available, I would make an appointment to check it out, and then my foreign teacher compatriots (Dan from Boston, and Willem from South Africa) and I would go and check it out. Willem is entering his fourth year teaching in Taiwan, and he was incredibly generous with his time in helping me navigate Taipei and check out apartments.

The price and quality of apartments in Taipei varies greatly, and being willing to spend a little more money, or live in one of the districts outside Taipei proper can be the difference between living in a small, poorly designed box (I saw a couple of these), or having a relatively spacious two bedroom apartment (which I ended up with). The first few days were a bit frustrating as most of the apartments that I looked at online were either too expensive, or too small. When I say small, I mean really small, as in about 200 sq ft and change. Basically enough room to have a bed, a desk, and a bathroom. Depending on where in the city you were looking, they could be as much or more than the apartment I ended up with (which is about 700 sq ft).

Between work and looking at apartments I did manage to do a little exploring which included stops at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall:


A walled garden area nearby:



Taipei 101:



This included a visit to the food court for spinach dalh courtesy of India Palace:



Oh, wait a moment. That was my second visit to Taipei 101 that I got the Indian food. This is what I got the first time:



This, my friends, is an oyster omelet. It had the potential to be good, but due to the addition of cornstarch, is a little too rubbery for my tastes. At the time I didn't even know it was cornstarch, so I was left speculating about why my omelet could be stretched to and fro. I didn't finish it. The oysters were good though.

During this time I was so caught up getting acclimated to having a job and trying to find an apartment, that the fact I was halfway around the world from Portland didn't even occur. However, I was prone to random "oh, s__t" moments, where the realization that I had finally made it abroad to teach filled me with a sense of overwhelming excitement. However, that was often tamed by my return to the Happy Family hostel, which gave me an "oh, s__t" feeling of a less positive variety.

After a search that took most of the week, I finally found my current apartment which is located in the Yonghe District of New Taipei City, and at one point in time had the second highest population density in the world. The apartment is owned by a really nice Taiwanese couple and they were incredibly helpful when I first moved including dropping off a little foldable sofa bed that I slept on until I could get a real bed (which they also dropped off for me).


This guy was the first visitor I had after moving into the apartment.





It's about a 45 minute commute for me to get to work, but I have found myself enjoying this time, as part of my commute takes me through a park near the Yonghe branch of the Taipei public library system. This park is consistently active, and when I walk through at about 7:15 in the morning there groups of ladies (mostly in the age range of probably 40s-60s) doing dance routines, even larger groups doing tai chi and qigong, people exercising, general socializing, and playing games. It is really great seeing so many people out and about early in the morning.

With the apartment search out of the way, I could finally focus on actual lesson planning, and the next week was filled with long days on the computer modifying and updating last years lesson plans and creating worksheets, but also included a visit out to the immigration office to apply for my ARC (Alien Resident Certificate) card. The ARC card is about the size of a driver's license and is my proof that I'm legit for working and living in Taiwan. It also means that if I fly to another country while I'm living in Taiwan I can go through the resident line at immigration, which is significantly smaller than the normal line for foreigners. With all my paperwork completed and getting close to wrapping up the lesson planning, the only thing left was waiting for the students to come back to school...

For those unaware, a brief history on how I discovered an interest in teaching abroad:

In the spring of 2003, Andrea and I went on the first of our trips to Central America. While we were there we happened to meet an Australian girl named Melanie (I might be wrong on that, but for this story it's going to be her name). She was traveling solo overall, though at the time she happened to be in the company of a guy from Portland named Victor who Andrea happened to meet shortly before we went on our trip (a different story I suppose, though not worth telling, as he was kind of a douche). She proved to be far superior company, and it was during our conversations with her that I found out that she was traveling on money she had earned after spending a year teaching in South Korea.

As soon as she mentioned having taught in Asia, the proverbial light bulb went off above my head. I knew at that moment I would at some point in my life do something similar. Melanie related some of her experiences teaching and her general impressions of Korean culture, and I was sold, I was going to teach in South Korea. While Melanie was the first person I met who had taught abroad, meeting her seemed to release the flood gate, and over the last eight years I have consistently run into people who have done similar teaching excursions. Each time it reaffirmed my interest in doing something similar, and it proved to be motivating enough to get me back into school to finish my bachelor’s degree (which was required in South Korea) so that I would be on my way to a jet set teaching lifestyle.

While I had originally intended on teaching abroad shortly after finishing college (2005), that is not how things ended up working out. However, considering that time involved a stint living in Austin, a second trip to Central America, going back to school to take a stab at a more traditional teaching career, Andrea becoming an amazing practitioner of TCM, and watching the circular nature of life as people left Portland, only to return, and some to leave again, I would have to say my previous intentions were ill-timed. In addition, South Korea proved to be incompatible with our life’s trajectory, and was replaced by Taiwan as the eventual destination. I usually feel dissuaded from touching on abstract notions of fate, but my own experiences have led me to believe that things usually work at as they are meant to, and so it seems that 2011 was destined to be the year that my (and Andrea’s) journey abroad was to begin…