Diary 5: What volunteering brought to me and why it is important that every teacher does this once in a while?
I would like to start from out of an importance of what Sandhya says in the interview Volunteer English Teachers Share Their Experiences in Collateral repair project. She says the following thing: "Having contact while volunteering with other teachers is important just so you understand what we do, why we do it, and most importantly, who we are doing it for." Besides Sandhya, Hannah B.G. Shaw writes in her article The importance and Benefits of Volunteering, that volunteering is multi-faceted in its importance to our society. It enriches our society, brings us together as a community, and helps keep businesses and other organizations afloat.
Everywhere I read I can assume that volunteering is very useful, not only for becoming a better teacher but also to develop yourself as a person. It is a great way to practice your intercultural communication skills and learn about other cultures. This of course is very essential but it also helps to better the community, it is extensive and gives you and the people you volunteer the opportunity to grow. For this reason I would like to share my experience as a volunteer in Spain:
During my Tefl course I had the opportunity to volunteer classes in the Academia de inglés Valencia Language Club in Catarroja. I volunteered in classes A1-A2, B1-C1 and kids, age 8-12. The kids, around 7 and 8 years old, were waiting outside for their teacher. When she arrived, the kids could choose a gesture before going in the classroom. They could choose out of giving a High Five, a hug or dancing on their own or with the teacher.
By starting the teacher used a warmer exercize. She played some songs through video and the children could read the subtitles on tv so that they could sing with her. Because of doing this a couple of weeks the children could sing sometimes without watching the subtitles on tv, practicing the vocabulary, using rhythm, participating the activity and practising grammar and most of all... having fun. She repeated it two times to let the children sing again and get comfortable with the songs. Afterwards the teacher showed a movie, Toy story, where she took out some words to practise vocabulary and pronunciation. For example forky = fork, bedroom = from who, rubbish = basura, trash = basura. Helping in a amusing way to learn new words and visualise together. She also repeated the movie, in parts, that helps them to remember and listen carefully to what the movie is telling and understood what happened. Furthermore she played a game with them. The game is called "I spy with my little eye and the color of the object is...?". Or "I spy with my little eye and the word starts with the letter...?". The children had to guess the word or the object. For this age she played with color because of their insufficient vocabulary. In one moment a child asked If he could go to the toilet in english. This is a good way to practise talking in English. And of course, seeing one colleague going to the bathroom all the other children needed to go :).
Meanwhile watching at this class I recognize that I liked some tricks that she used. I would like to share three examples:
Children like to talk and especially when the teacher wants to explain something. The teacher used a trick to let them stop talking. She counted from 1 to 3. This is an effective way of letting the children know when they have to be silent.
The teacher made a list of bad and good behaviour. When somebody was behaving good or bad she wrote a dash on the list. The list was done in a sprightly and very clear way. This can be effective and exciting for the children to pay attention and do their best.
The methodology of this language school is working without a textbook. They are working with a schedule of different subjects every week and every hour. This includes obviously the four language skills Listening, reading, writing and speaking with their basic learning styles Visual (spatial), Aural (auditory-musical), Verbal (linguistic) and Physical (kinaesthetic). It is well prepared and evident. The children could bring their own notebooks and write some notes. The teacher wrote sometimes on the whiteboard and gave multiple explanations of one word. The children could write this down to remember so that they will not be overloaded by books or various of papers. Only using a topic-based syllabus as a framework, provided a natural stimulus for language learning in a realistic context. This then, providds further objectives, whether they be grammatical, lexical or pronunciation based, on which to build the course.
While teaching is constructive, volunteering is just as important to develop yourself and help your community to expand. Volunteering is the best way to know if you are choosing or doing the right job, if your ideas of teaching are similar to what the other teacher is working with, for example: If I want that the children stop talking I would count from 5 till cero instead of from 1 to 3. I won't say this is the best way but in many cases, and it also depends of the day, of the group, I think counting backwards will help to give a concrete timeframe and also this is known and feels logical by every child. The key for me will be, referring to my philosophy, is building some moments in where the children will do a movement exercise. Looking back at what Sandhya says that what we do and why we do it is a part of your methodology of being a teacher. Likewise I thought I prefer to teach children but on this moment I don't have a preference because I think that it depends about the class, about the school where you are teaching and not to forget about how you are as a teacher. Whether or not you think you don't need volunteering because you know everything, it will be an experience that helps you to get new inspiration, build up good relationships with other teachers and students, help students and yourself developing, keeping up with the changes and it gives you a reflection of how you are as a teacher and how you want to be as a teacher every day and every hour.
Links:
https://www.collateralrepairproject.org/volunteer-english-teachers-share-their-experiences/
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/teaching-without-a-coursebook