My job as an English Education volunteer is to work with Moldovan English teachers to help improve their teaching methods and techniques as well as their English skills. Last year, I taught 18 hours class hours per week with four different partner teachers. In addition to the hours in classroom, I spent at least one additional hour per week with each partner planning the weekly lessons. I helped develop new resources for the lessons I taught, and I taught my partners some new activities. My days were long and difficult.
This year, there is another English teacher returning to our school from a 3-year maternity leave (which is a typical length for maternity leave in Moldova), so my other four partners are losing many of their teaching hours. The new teacher, Lilia, has asked to not work with me right this semester, which I can completely understanding since coming back to teaching already requires a lot of figuring things out. I wouldn’t want to make an already difficult time more difficult for her. Once she feels settled in, we might be able to teach together.
With all these changes, it would be difficult for me to do the same kind of routine as last year. So I have come up with a new goal, after talking with my partners: as opposed to a partner teacher, I will work as a resource teacher. I will teach fewer hours and spend more time researching and making materials. I will work with my partners to make these things, but I will be making things for classes that I won’t necessarily be teaching. And instead of spending all my time with my partners planning every minute of every lesson, I hope to spend that time teaching my partners new activities that can apply to all lessons and as well as better ways to teach English. Last year, our planning time together really needed to focus on what exactly we are doing next lesson. So this would be more about teaching my partners rather than teaching with my partners.
I also hope to teach my partners how to work together to make teaching easier. Right now, they each kind of work independently of each other. Each of them makes their own things. And when I would plan with each individual partner, the materials we made for that class were not always things that could be shared easily. So now, if I’m working more as a resource teacher, when I’m making resources with my partners, we will make things to share with the whole English department instead of the individual teacher.
Furthermore, Tatiana told me today that our director has given the English department a classroom to use. This means we can make it into an English resource center, so there is a place to put all the resources I will be making with my partners. It also means I finally have a place to work in the school during my free periods. Last year, I felt like a refugee when I didn’t have a class to teach, having no room to work in. With this new room, I have a place where I can spend my free periods at school to work on resource development.
I’m so excited about this potential idea. I feel like I can do so many more useful things with my partners this way, and I think my partners will like this arrangement better. And I feel like it uses my skills and education better. Plus, I think I will be happier doing this kind of work. Now I just have to get Peace Corps to approve this change. Wish me luck!
This year, there is another English teacher returning to our school from a 3-year maternity leave (which is a typical length for maternity leave in Moldova), so my other four partners are losing many of their teaching hours. The new teacher, Lilia, has asked to not work with me right this semester, which I can completely understanding since coming back to teaching already requires a lot of figuring things out. I wouldn’t want to make an already difficult time more difficult for her. Once she feels settled in, we might be able to teach together.
With all these changes, it would be difficult for me to do the same kind of routine as last year. So I have come up with a new goal, after talking with my partners: as opposed to a partner teacher, I will work as a resource teacher. I will teach fewer hours and spend more time researching and making materials. I will work with my partners to make these things, but I will be making things for classes that I won’t necessarily be teaching. And instead of spending all my time with my partners planning every minute of every lesson, I hope to spend that time teaching my partners new activities that can apply to all lessons and as well as better ways to teach English. Last year, our planning time together really needed to focus on what exactly we are doing next lesson. So this would be more about teaching my partners rather than teaching with my partners.
I also hope to teach my partners how to work together to make teaching easier. Right now, they each kind of work independently of each other. Each of them makes their own things. And when I would plan with each individual partner, the materials we made for that class were not always things that could be shared easily. So now, if I’m working more as a resource teacher, when I’m making resources with my partners, we will make things to share with the whole English department instead of the individual teacher.
Furthermore, Tatiana told me today that our director has given the English department a classroom to use. This means we can make it into an English resource center, so there is a place to put all the resources I will be making with my partners. It also means I finally have a place to work in the school during my free periods. Last year, I felt like a refugee when I didn’t have a class to teach, having no room to work in. With this new room, I have a place where I can spend my free periods at school to work on resource development.
I’m so excited about this potential idea. I feel like I can do so many more useful things with my partners this way, and I think my partners will like this arrangement better. And I feel like it uses my skills and education better. Plus, I think I will be happier doing this kind of work. Now I just have to get Peace Corps to approve this change. Wish me luck!
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