My First Lesson Went Sooo Bad; That Was The Best Outcome

Heading into this new job as a teacher, I was initially intimidated.

Then I realized, if any of my high school teachers could do it, why couldn’t I?

Education in Timor-Leste

In Timor-Leste, English is taught in Portuguese. The people don’t speak Portuguese. Everyone speaks Tetum, in addition to their district’s local language, but Portuguese is still the language of government and education. The Portuguese left 50 years ago, but some things are hard to change. There was also the Indonesian occupation of 25 years that forcibly taught Bahasa Indonesian to students, while banning the use of Portuguese. Bahasa remains a working language with many kids knowing plenty because all the TV shows are dubbed in it and most junk food comes from Indonesia. When it comes to numbers, people generally use Tetum for quantities, Bahasa for prices, and Portuguese for dates. Timor-Leste recently joined ASEAN, a critical regional intergovernmental organization that uses English as the primary language. English is also the language of nearby rich countries like Australia and Singapore where good paying jobs are plentiful. Moreover, is English’s role as the international language of money. This is why, despite the existing linguistical hodgepodge in the country, the government has recently begun a push for people to learn English; leading me here to teach English to a class of Tetum speakers with textbooks written in Portuguese.

My first observation of a classroom here involved me in the back with 80 students in front of me and the school band’s drum section practicing next to me reverberating through the pane-less windows. The teacher stands firm at the front of the room lecturing from the textbook as though gospel. To his credit, the teacher held the attention of class despite his soft voice being smothered under the nearby deafening percussion. Teachers in Timor-Leste generally practice what we’ve learned to identify as the “Teacher Centered Approach”, much like a college lecture hall where one voice dominates the entire time. In our training, we have been taught to employ the “Student Centered Approach” where the teacher shares the room with students to allow space for discussion, group activities, and presentations. In the class I observed, the rare case of a student speaking involved a gentle murmur in response to an assertive question from the teacher. This, paired with the occasional corrective pinch or hand slap, flew in the face of all our training to be teachers. While surprised, this teacher has been doing his job far longer than I have. Hell, I haven’t even finished training yet. I’ve never stood in front of a class to deliver a lesson. Never have I had 80 pupils staring at me, many too hungry to pay attention, some exhausted from working the family farm all day prior, all intent on learning this silly language for the hope of a better life. Never had I done this, not until this past week.

Why My Lesson was so bad

For starters, I greatly overestimated the English ability of the students. I forgot how little Spanish I understood when I was in the 10th grade. Crisis was averted on the face of the class because I fortunately know enough Tetum to effectively run and communicate with a class. The issue arose with the actual lesson plan and those damn Portuguese textbooks. At the high school level, the textbooks fortunately drop all the Portuguese; however they replace it with English which is just as foreign to the kids this grade. Most fault was my own for blindly following the recommended lesson plan the teacher whose class I was teaching provided. This meant the lesson plan and the textbook were synonymous, a textbook full of errors and erratic lesson layouts.

Starting the lesson was my co-teacher (another volunteer) reading aloud a newspaper article in the textbook about Jackie Chan. This was piece of writing hardly legible to me, a college educated native speaker. When asked in Tetum to explain what the article was talking about, not a single student would even try to answer when called upon. When asked to read the article in groups and discuss, I prayed for the band to show up to break this dreadful silence as not a word was shared. The students were lost, as was my confidence. Withing ten minutes of class, the thought came to me, “This, coming to Timor-Leste to be a teacher, is the dumbest thing I have ever done. What the hell am I doing here?”. I quickly pivoted to the next topic about sports, most of which were completely alien to the kids in this classroom. Nevertheless, I proceeded to try to explain golf and ice hockey to kids in the tropics. This was met with just as many silent stares as the last topic.

A fuzzy image taken from my favorite classroom activity, “Answer me correctly, or I drop the hydroflask on your friend”
Everyone did so well!
For government purposes, this is joke and I am very anti corporal punishment
Also it looks like I’m wearing catboy ears so it’s already a little funny

The real problem was not the subpar lesson design, as that could be fixed easily, but rather the impossible task of encouraging participation and collaboration from these students. More than ever I understood the position of the full time teacher who stands in front of class to lecture with minimal student interaction. These kids are simply too shy and scared! When told to work together, it is as if blinders were placed on each student rendering them incapable of acknowledging the person next to them. Asking for contributions to share with the class in perfectly clear Tetum was as if speaking to them in Greek. They would simply stare me into submission. How on Earth was I supposed to run this “Student Centered Approach” when the students clearly want nothing more than for the center to be as far from them as possible!

Why the next lesson was better

The class ended with a whimper, and I had all of five minutes to scuttle to the next class on the same topic. There was no way I could face that kind of embarrassment from high schoolers again and running away without getting caught wasn’t as option so I had to quickly revamp everything. Of the few changes I made, the most impactful was doing some goofy karate jump kicks while showing a video of Jackie Chan for context on their article. This had the effect of making the students laugh which in turned eased them into talking. Without knowing it, my desperate shenanigans put me on the verge of a breakthrough. While this lesson was not one to be proud of, it was much better than its predecessor.

God bless our Country Director’s photography skills

Later that night I frantically came up with solutions on how to never have a disaster like that ever again. Was I going to embrace the role of a lecturer over that of a facilitator? It is what the local teachers do, so it has to be the norm for a reason. That is when I realized I might just have this dynamic backwards. What if the teachers don’t choose a “Teacher Centered Approach” because their students are shy and unwilling to participate in activities, but rather the students are conditioned to be this way because this is the only classroom dynamic they’ve experienced? Maybe they’re scared to speak out of line out of fear of corporal punishment or timid in the huge power imbalance between them and the classroom dominating teacher. All it would take is mild reconditioning and establishing a different relationship with the students. After this realization, I changed everything about the lesson the coming morning.

I thought about the English class I have every night at my house for all the kids in my neighborhood. This has been such an evident success. Why were the outcomes so different between the formal and informal classes? Sure size plays a role, but more than that it is the reality that I know all their names and they know me as the guy who plays football with them every night. It is a much more relaxed environment that doubles as a place more conducive to be vulnerable in the struggles of learning. This would be the basis for my approach to classes going forward.

Bunny ears on the teacher, some things are innate to the human spirit

Before class started I gave every student a half piece of paper they were to write their names on, fold, then present as a name placard on the desk. This was the most impactful change as it allowed me to call students by their names, establishing the basis of connection and trust. During the introductions, not only did I say more things about myself like hobbies and interests, I also played “The Final Countdown” on my laptop. This had the subtle benefit of presenting myself as real of a person as any of them are. This, paired with a decent lesson plan, changed everything. Whereas yesterday when checking comprehension I might tower over a terrified student asking “You, there, what is _______?” today I would crouch near the student if during group work time, call them by their name, and witness the dramatic effects these subtle changes had on their performance. By treating my students like people, they acted like it. With their enhanced abilities came my improved self-confidence, leading to a virtuous cycle of educational achievement. Then another thought came to mind, “This is only day one with this class, imagine reinforcing this style over the course of a full year”. Incredible opportunities began shining themselves in ways that seemed impossible only a day prior. The greatest compliment were the swarms of students surrounding my co-teacher and myself asking us questions about ourselves and America. In the time of a day, we assailed to the role as the cool teachers.

Did I mention every class’s windows are lined with adoring fans gleaning in for a peak of whatever we have going on?

Why Bad Is Actually,,, Good

My various and continual failures actively make me a better person every single day. When things are good, they’re good. When things are bad and within my control, I am able to learn, and that is good. Maybe even better than when things were good to start from because I was able to learn something new I can apply later. When my first class as a teacher derailed, I was presented with plenty of options to react. I could’ve chosen pride by blaming the students or full-time teacher for lacking some character causing my perfect lesson to fall apart. Maybe fear of incompetence could’ve won and I rejected all previous evidence that I can be a good teacher, leading me to want to give up on this endeavor in the nascent stages. Perhaps I let ignorance tell me that my trainers set me up to fail with this different approach to the classroom. It would’ve been sooo easy to complain endlessly about the unpleasant scenario then adopt a complacent mindset telling myself that this is just what teaching is! I didn’t do any of these. I chose resilience in the face of failure. I identified the issues followed by the solutions then carried them out in my next lesson. I understand this is a self-righteous way to describe coming back from high schoolers awkwardly staring at me for like 40 min max, but this isn’t just about my first time teaching. All my many failures leading up my first day teaching are what made my second day prominently better. This mindset I’ve grown into is not only what makes me one of the most joyous people I know, it is also going to deliver me from the future challenges in the hardest job I’ll ever love.