February 29,2012

Today was my first day in class. It didn’t start out so well. I was late. It wasn’t my intention I just didn’t plan time right. I came in when Ms. Austin had already started. She said it was alright I had come late. I still felt bad. I don’t want to give the service learning students a bad image. Anyways, I was so nervous. She said that I could sit where I wanted; either by her desk or on the side next to the students. I decided to sit next to the students. When I made that decision, I thought of the students. I wanted them to be comfortable with me. I felt that if I had sat next to the teacher I would have felt like a teacher’s pet. I would have felt like I was trying to seem better than the students. I wanted them to see me as their equal.  When I first walked in, I noticed there was another lady sitting in on the classroom. The lady was sitting a seat next to me. She was another ESL teacher. Ms. Austin explained that sometimes teachers sit in on other teacher’s classroom. I don’t remember her name. I was too worried about myself. When Ms. Austin saw me, she said she didn’t know if I was coming; so she just plans class as if I won’t be there. Her statement kind of made me feel bad. Did I come off as undependable when we first met? My tardiness definitely didn’t help put me in a good light.  Whatever the case, she told me that I was just to go around and help others with their board sentences. The lesson plan she gave the class was to write the words she wrote on the board into sentences. I thought it would be real easy. The lesson actually tested me as to what was proper English. I decided to get up and check and see if anyone needed help. I thought my class was all Spanish speakers, but there is one lady who actually speaks English. She speaks what Ms. Austin said is British English. She got confused as to why “yesterday” comes at the beginning of a sentence and not the end. I told her it would sound better grammatically to put it at the beginning. She got frustrated and put her head down. I felt awkward. I didn’t know what to say. I thought I had made things worse for her. All I could think to say was it will be fine don’t give up. I decided to go help other students. The question then passed in my head of: Am I capable of being a good teacher, or will I make it worse? Will I be horrible? I gave it a try to walk over and see if I could help any of the Spanish students. I only had time to make it to two classmates. I had checked their work. They were pretty much done. Ms. Austin called for volunteers to put their answers on the board. After board work, Ms. Austin broke them into groups. Ms. Austin said the week before they talked about the different services that were offered to people. Today, they were to write what each service can do of us as individuals and a community. Post office, library, and court house are some examples of the services mentioned. Ms. Austin said I could walk around, give suggestions to those who needed help, and look at their suggestions to see if they work. A lot of the groups consisted mainly of Spanish speakers. I remember helping this one group and one of the ladies in the group talked about the service of school. She told me the school helped arranged for her son to be in programs that help him because he is ADHD. I know she was just using that as an example, but she really touched me with that information. The fact she would share not knowing me, touched me. After we were done, with the assignment Ms. Austin introduced me to the class. She told them I would be helping the class. She told them I was in a Spanish class and asked me to speak Spanish to them. I was shocked and nervous. I had just spoke English. I wasn’t thinking in Spanish. I didn’t know what to say. I told them my name is Kirstie. I was 21 and nothing else. I could wait to sit down. Even though it was just the first day, I was able to start seeing how others deal with not being able to speak good English.