Expectations

This week was an interesting one for sure. With my 5th grade class on Wednesday, I had to stop an activity and have a one-on-one with the class. This first half of the year has been hard, rough and frustrating. The 5th grade students are ill-behaved, not just in my class, but throughout the school. After trying to settle down the students for maybe the 5-6th time during the class, I stopped the class and asked them "Why do you think we learn English?" I got a wide range of responses:

"Because you are a teacher."
"You need money."
"Because we have to go to college and read English books."
"We need it to travel."
"We learn English so we can talk to other people."
"We have to take a test."

I told my students that all of these are correct answers, but then I rephrased the question to "Why do you think Lena (my co-teacher) and I want to teach you English?"

At this point, the students weren't sure how to answer, so I told them:

"I want to teach you English so you can have a better chance at doing other things and experience the world. You have a great opportunity to start a language at a young age. Most people in the world do not get this chance. So, I know that English is hard and I don't expect you to memorize 1,000 words and I'm not worried about your test scores. I just want you to be able to use English to enjoy your lives. Just try and learn at least one thing in English and I'll be very happy for you."

The class went silent and the message seemed to have gotten through to some students. Hopefully, it will stick to some students and help them focus a bit more in class. It was interesting the expectations for the teacher and student can get lost or not even established at all. In this case, it happened with me.