A small act of kindness, may make a big difference.

About 4 years ago, for three months I was a substitute teacher in a poor school in a nearby city. The school received economical help, mainly from the government, many of the children that went to that school came from poor neighbourhoods, and many of them went to school just to eat, since in most of the cases that was the only food they took during the day. Most of the money received from the government was devoted to food, since children sometimes took some food home, and a small amount of the income was for teaching materials; and there is where I had difficulties

As it might have been expected the teacher did not have a course book, so she mainly asked students to copy from the board. Students had disruptive behavior, so in general they did one or two activities during the whole class. I was used to working in different contexts, where students do not behave so badly and where in general we devote the class to do several activities. I also encountered some problems when doing listening activities, not to name the use of computers, or DVDs. I asked the headmistress for tape recorders, or TV sets but she said there was only one and it was broken, they were having it fixed. Moreover when I asked her if she can help me with the photocopies, maybe taking them in the school kiosk, or giving me part of the money spent, she just told me that it was not possible and that I should just copy on the board.

As regards the photocopies I decided to pay for them, after all they were not too many and students feel happier with that working style, since they realize they could do many nice activities without the need of being doing what the hated the most that was to copy in English. As regards the tape recorder, after having being waiting for two weeks for the supposedly in repair tape recorder, I decided to take mine to the school, but it was too big. Also I realized some other teachers needed one, since they asked me for mine. The last week in that school, with part of the money I got for that job, I decided to buy a tape recorder for the school. I stick a big red ribbon on it and gave it to my course, I told them it was for their English lessons, so that everytime they listened to a song or any listening activity, they were going to remind me. That day when I left the school, I felt extremely happy and with a nice feeling of having helped those students to start seeing the English language and the English teachers not as aliens in their schools but just as one more of the team.

After reflecting on my own experience, and comparing it with the situation depicted in the article “A Small-scale Study of Primary School English Language Teachers’ Classroom Activities and Problems”, Arikan (2011), I can say that teachers all over the world encounter the same difficulties. Those teachers working in primary schools in Turkey face exactly the same problems I had to face when teaching in a primary school in a nearby city. In my case it was complex working with listening activities since the school did not count with the technology necessary to do so, and the same happens in Turkey. Some large studies that were carried on in that country, reported the problematic teachers face with tapes and CDs and they believe, as well as I do, that “tape recorders and cassettes should be distributed by the Ministry of National Education” (p.5). Teachers in Turkey also claim for a variety of printed materials to improve their teaching, in the case of our county, I would say that many English teachers would be happy if the Ministry of Education provide students at least with a textbook.

Reference

Arikan, A. (2011). A Small-scale Study of Primary School English Language Teachers’ Classroom Activities and Problems. International Conference on New Trends in Education and their Implications.Akdeniz University.