In Class

I step into the classroom.

“Good morning TEACHER!” Fifty standing students scream in unison, getting louder on each word.

I echo their greeting as I cross the room to the teacher’s desk in the far corner. I pause for just a moment before waving my hands toward the ground and saying, “Please sit down.”

They sit. The murmur that had echoed in the room just before I entered resumes.

I pull out my materials and mentally review my agenda for the day. Then I grab the attendance sheet and sit on the surface of the desk facing them. As I start reading names, the conversation continues, prompting me to speak louder. But I do the opposite.

I’m amazed by the hearing ability of my students who can hear me speaking just above a whisper. Still, the loud ones quiet down. By now I have many names memorized so I can look straight at the student as soon as I call the name. But I try to play it the same for everyone, calling the name, pausing just a moment and then looking up just in time to see the hand go up. When I’m finished I make a note of the absences.

Then I ask, “What do you want to do?”

“Play a game!” they shout.

So I begin organizing them into teams and explaining the rules. Today’s game is “Tense Race.” I write sentences on the board and then write four or five tenses under it (present perfect or future simple for example). They have to rewrite the sentence and change the verb for each tense. There are four teams and four corresponding sections on the board.

I tell each team to pick the first person to write—one person at a time. When all four are assembled with chalk in hand I give them a count of three and say “go!” The next few minutes are chaos, as they scramble to complete the sentences correctly. When a sentence is correct, I add a check mark. If I don’t add a check mark they frown thoughtfully and launch into discussion.

As the game progresses it becomes more and more hectic. Several students on a team write at once, arguing with each other, erasing mistakes—or perceived ones—and trying again.

After several rounds of this, when the class is sufficiently engaged and hopefully one team has gained a lead, I call the game and congratulate the winner—or winners.

Now I return to the teacher’s desk to find my lesson plan for the day. The din of excitement continues as I write the word “Lesson” on the board—the students will open a different notebook for a lesson versus an exercise. My writing is met with groans and various quips meant to slow our progress.

“Teacher, I am lazy!”

“Can we go home now?”

“Let’s play another game!”

This actually pleases me when it’s in English. But usually it’s not. So I ignore it and go on writing. Despite the objections, if I write they write—though on a delayed start in most cases. Today I teach them about modal verbs, writing the structure of the sentence as a formula with boxes around each part.

Subject + Modal Verb + Main Verb
Modal Verb + Subject + Main Verb + ?

Then I start giving examples.

I approach one of the more distracted students and ask, “Can you go home now?”

He looks at me with sheepish confusion. His partner whispers to him “afaka mody?” The first student nods his head slyly.

“Yes I can,” he says.

I let forth a jolly laugh.

“Really?” I ask. Then, “No. You…can…not…go home.”

Then I return to the board and expand on the formula, showing where to insert the “not” and then how to form a contraction.

Subject + Modal Verb + “Not” + Main Verb

For some people, this is review. For many it’s all new. Some people know of modals as auxiliary verbs. I can never be sure what they’ve learned in earlier grades so I’m as thorough as possible. From the appearance of many nodding heads this seems to be sinking in. I ask if they understand.

“Yes TEACHER!” the majority shouts in unison.

But this can be misleading. Replying in the affirmative is the polite thing to do, even if it’s not true. We’ll find out when I give the test if they really understand. But in the meantime I can give them practice and try to gauge their receptivity, so I put an exercise on the board. They switch to their exercise notebooks. I walk around the room a couple of times to catalyze the mechanism of copying. By the end of the second pass most of them have copied the first question.

I walk to the door and stare across a valley of rice paddies to my town, tumbling down the side of a mountain. I sigh and let my mind wander into reverie.