This week at NBBC there was a surplus of "teachers" compared to the number of students and this week, which was my fourth, contained yet another new dynamic. Instead of one-on-one teaching or being paired with one other volunteer, this week I was partnered with two other volunteers as well as J, the student I have been working with for the past several weeks. I was excited to have more than one teaching style to rely on while helping J learn the English language and I think J was equally as anxious to begin as well.
As the four of us began to interact it was apparent what role we were each going to perform. The other female volunteer felt the most comfortable with initiating the lesson plans, so she took the reins and began the chapter with J in Spanish. Throughout the two hours she did a great job with being creative with the lesson plans and she was able to think of new ways to deliever the material to J, which seemingly helped him to retain the information better while testing his knowledge over the subject matter.
I took on the reinforcer role, which meant that I was there to help the other volunteers with explaining the exercises and giving J the confidence to answer the questions in English without the fear of making mistakes. I felt that I was most needed for moral support and clarifying explanations if something in particular needed a different approach.
The third volunteer took on a more subtle role, which consisted of casual conversation, which seemed to ease J's nerves and made him smile and laugh. J even began opening up to this volunteer about his home of Michoacan, Mexico, explaining that the city is surrounded by forests and mountains and the inner city is full of tall buildings and markets.
The three of us seemed to make up the driver, passanger and back seat driver of a car, with each one of us having a different perspective and different role that made the night a collaborative success. I will admit that taking the "passanger" seat was a bit hard for me at first, mainly because I wanted to take a more active and hands-on role in the process, so regardless to say, sitting back and observing was a challenge for me. After a few mintues I became more comfortable with being an auxillary teacher because I realized that this experience is not for me to solely bask in, but instead, this experience is for J and whatever system works best, whether with me as the driver or not, is what needed to be done.
Overall, my experience was a completely different one than I expected to receive, but I was satisfied with the progress J made and that I had the opportunity to work with two other school volunteers as well. Being such a large teaching group made the time pass quickly, which means that we all must have been having fun.
I will miss the students from NBBC and I hope that they continue their own personal journeys at the church and that they remain committed to the ESL program and even perhaps grow in numbers. My experience has been a very fullfilling one and I have more respect for educators because teaching does not just take patience, but rather, there is a quality of understanding that must be present. I found this spoken of understanding in the form of culture, values and beliefs while interacting with J and that is something that I was surprised to have learned.
