New Semester, Same Frustrations

January 26, 2008

For the last two weeks I have been busy getting back into the swing of things as we began a new semester her at the College. Last week, was a normal schedule of classes where we reviewed all of the stuff they had been working on before they left that they had forgotten over their five month long break. This week, however, was exams, and I would just like to note that as hard as exams are for students, they are even for teachers. Besides writing and giving three tests of my own, I was blessed with the opportunity to give a four hour long exam with my counterpart, Lazzat. For the exam each student was assigned a text from their book that they had to read, translate, and explain. They then had to “make up a situation” based on a few vocabulary words and talk about a randomly assigned subject. While most of the students did very well, but there were a few (the ones who normally sit in the back of the classroom) that did not, and then it was just painful to watch. They could complete the reading part well enough because they have all been thoroughly trained in phonetics, but when it came time to engage in translation or innovation, they just sat their in silence while Lazzat and I tried desperately to get them started with leading questions. Still, that exam was hardly the most frustrating moment of the week.

On Tuesday, I was scheduled to give a test to my K1D group, but the classroom I normally use was full of another group of students taking an exam. Not knowing where else to go, I brought everyone to “my classroom” that while small, still managed to hold everyone. We were ten minutes into the test when Lazzat came in and told us that the room was the “methodological classroom” where only groups of 20 people or fewer could have a class, and thus my group of 23 would have to leave. We managed to quickly find another classroom, and the students finished the exam, but afterwards I went back to ask Lazzat why we had to move. She said that the methodological classroom was special and needed to be kept clean and as unused as possible because that was where they put on the show when a supervisor or inspector came to look at the school. Then for good measure, she told me that even though it is -20 degrees outside and freezing inside, I should have my students should take off their coats before coming to class because it looks bad. I probably got a little more mad than I should, after all this was just another typical example of the Kazak custom of putting style over substance.

As often as I am impressed by the Kazakstan education system, there are times when I feel that they are more interested in the appearance of learning than actual learning. It is water under the bridge at this point, and I know while my teaching is important, my role as cultural ambassador is even more important. Thus, in the name of building bridges between nations, I will continue to smile, nod, and go to every little secondary school English show that my counterpart drags me to, but all the while I will wonder whether they might be making even more progress in English if they were back in class.