Merhabalar, readers!
While I was writing my posts on Istanbul and the Fun
Run/Death March (10/16/2011, never forget), I realized that I’ve only been
writing about the more exotic, travel-based adventures since September. I’m
worried that if you read my blog and only see the pictures of the beautiful
places Turkey has to offer, you would think I’m only interested in using my
time here in Turkey to only visit those beautiful places and nothing more.
What you have neglected to accurately display and express to
you, little baby readers, is how much I have come to love teaching English as a
second language. So in this post, I’m
going to tell you more about my university and the classes that I teach there.
I teach Monday through Thursday at the university’s
education campus and in their medical technical building. I teach nine
forty-five minute classes on conversational English to nursing and education students;
I also teach two groups of students, each for a total of five hours a week,
that are studying to become English language teachers in high schools and
universities across Turkey.
While my forty-five minute classes are fun and have
certainly done wonders for my Turkish, it’s the two groups of ELT students who
have really shaped my experiences in the classroom thus far. Because many of
them attended Anatolian high schools (read as: honors high schools) that
specialized in English language teaching, they get my jokes and can even make
their own jokes in English. They like talking to me and I like talking to them.
More importantly, they are first year students, which makes me feel like I’m
still an RA… except I’m never on duty, I never have incidents, and everything I
do is a program (but in a good way).
I’ve decided that the best way to convey to you, readers, my
love for teaching in the most concise way possible is present you with a list
of my top ten favorite classroom/student moments thus far. I think this list itself
will give you a better understanding of why I’m glad I’m in Turkey and why I
love what I do.
1. Acrostic Love Poems
This is not a typo or a misprint. At the beginning of the
term, I was consistently receiving acrostic love poems from one of my students
on a twice-weekly basis. At first, I thought that this might be a problem on so
many levels—is this okay? I’m not entirely sure. (Oh, I’m sorry— did I make it
clear enough that these poems are about me? Because these poems are about me.
In fact, the “acrostic” part means that it’s my name being used in the poems.)
They get somewhat steamy from time to time, but you know what? They’re
hilarious. And they’re even better because they’re in English and the rest of
my students get the jokes—in English. How is this bad? It’s not. I think it’s
hilarious. My student is writing in English, my students are getting jokes in
English. I love it.
2. Pen Pal Madness
Some of you might be aware that the Fulbright ETA programs
“requires” (I’m not too sure how stringently this is followed) that ETAs
maintain a side project. Being the rule-abiding individual that I am, I created
an email exchange / pen-pal program between students at Balikesir University
and students at Rowan University. I’ve received an overwhelming response of
support from the Rowan community, and while I cannot thank them enough for
their help, this side projects certainly still has problems that need to be
solved. However, for my students who have successfully gotten in touch with
their American pen pals, they only have good things to say. They come into
class each week excited to tell me what they and their pen pal talked about
over the weekend or since our last class.
It’s pretty great and it makes me really want to make sure that every
student I have who wants a pen pal gets one, despite how difficult it’s been to
make that happen.
3. Break Time
In Turkey, for every forty-five minutes a university class
is in session, they’re allowed a fifteen-minute break. At first, and let me be
as clear here as possible, I thought this was bullshit. Forty-five minutes?
I’ve had professors who give you a stern talking-to if you leave to go to the
bathroom, and these kids get a coffee break after forty-five minutes. Since the beginning of the term, however, many
students would much rather talk to me about things than grab tea or a snack. I
don’t like this because of the unending attention I get, I like it because I
get to talk to my students in smaller groups and I get to learn about
them. The boys and I talk football
(soccer), how to work in the United States, what university in the United
States is like…. the girls and I talk where to buy what sorts of clothes in the
city center and if I have a boyfriend and how old I am. They’re so funny and so
goofy and I think they’re just great.
4. Surprising My Students with My Mad Turkish Skillz
Every weekend, I try and learn some Turkish so I can
actually have a chance of someday understanding what in the sweet hell goes on
around me. I realized, early on in the term, that Turkish students love when
you try and use Turkish. I’m not talking, “Oh, good try! That was really
close!” I’m talking standing ovations. My ELT students get the biggest kick out
of this. This week, we watched Finding
Nemo (more on this success in a little) and had serious technical
difficulties in doing so. As two students in my first class were trying to get
the DVD to play on the ancient Windows XP software (not a joke), they were
talking to one another about which program to use in Turkish. The conversation
went a little bit like this:
Student A: Ama Windows Media Player var mı?
Student B: Media Player yok, VLC var.
Mary: Ah! Quick Time var mı?
The looks on their faces… you would have thought that the
word of God himself had just been expelled from my lips. This, followed by an
eruption of applause and so many “var” and “yok” jokes for the next twenty
minutes while we tried to get Nemo to play, which prompted…
5.
“Nemo Yok?”
This particular moment gets its own mention, because it was
GREAT. So, once I demonstrated to my students that I had an understanding of
how to ask if there is or isn’t something (var mi?), they started quizzing me,
which they also have a great passion for. As I’m starting to get frazzled
watching these kids more or less rewrite the software to make this DVD play,
one of my students raises his hand and goes, “So Mary…. Nemo… yok?” It could
have been the funniest thing that had happened to me this week. What a
well-placed Turklish (yes, Turklish) joke.
6. Ah Ha Moments!
(or, Explaining to My Students What a Kindle Is)
This moment makes this list for purely selfish motivations.
I have a lot of difficulty communicating with the students in my nine other
classes (as I do with the rest of the Turkish population as well). The other
day, while I was waiting for students to show up for class, I had forgotten to
put my Kindle away. All of a sudden, some stealthy little Turk was on top of
me, asking me what it was. Then—bum-rushed by more interested students. When I
realized that they couldn’t understand what I was saying in English, I realized
I knew how to say “books inside a book” in Turkish—and we shared an awesome
mutual ah-ha! moment. This, of course, is just one of my more recent ah ha! moment
experiences, but I think it’s not too shabby of an example.
7. Willie Nelson, Young the Giant, and Middle Brother
Because one of the classes with my ELT students is called
Pronunciation & Listening, I thought it might be fun to talk about how, in
English, intonation plays a large part in deciphering the meaning of what
someone says and how this relates to music. When I asked my students what sort
of music they listened to, they more or less said American or Turkish pop or
hip-hop. I had already decided to play
Willie Nelson, Young the Giant, and Middle Brother and I was worried my
students wouldn’t like it. Not the case at all! They loved it, and it sparked
even more conversation topics and one-on-one dialogs than I had expected.
8. Helpful Little Turklar!
This might also be a selfish point, but all of my students,
regardless of their proficiency in English, love to help me with things. Male
students who are even shorter than I am offer to erase my white boards
everyday. When I need to go places or find things, they offer to go with me.
They are just great. It’s funny, I would expect middle school students, like
those in my student teaching classes, to be that helpful in the classroom… I
don’t expect that from university students. It’s really nice.
9. Seeing Students in Public
Seeing university students in public is just as fun as
seeing middle school students in public! And, I don’t feel as bad when I’m not
in teacher clothes! They love showing off if they’re practiced what we’ve
learned in class that week and, like my ELT students, love when I respond in
Turkish. Perfect symbiotic relationship.
10. My Newest Student
Okay, this is the most awesome thing ever.
For four years, I had tried to chill with Donald Farish,
former president of Rowan University. For four years, I was a faithful fan. I
even won a chance to have lunch with him and it never happened. However, this
week, my university contact person told me that I’d be teaching another class
on Tuesday or Wednesday mornings, depending on the students’ schedules. At this
point in my week, I was tired and I was really tired of how frequently my
scheduled seemed to shift… until I was told that my new students were the
rektor (read: president) and vice rektors (read: vice presidents) of the
university. Whattheheck. I was so scared. What do you plan to teach the rektor
of a university?!
So we had our first class, and let me tell you, it was the
greatest. It was lots of fun, and it went so well that we’re having breakfast
together on Tuesday.
I LOVE TURKEY.
