That class

For the last few months I've been teaching a class in a town about half an hour away. Of course, by the time I wait for taxis and deal with all the stops along the way, I have to leave at least an hour for travel time, but that's not really the point of the story...

This class has been a long-term frustration.

First, I didn't plan on teaching the whole class. I planned on teaching the first session, then a session later on. But somehow my amenable self got roped into teaching the class once a week, which meant every other lesson. So it was more of a commitment than I planned.

Then the students were consistently showing up late. At class time I would have maybe one student, but by 15 minutes into the class time everyone would be there. After three weeks of this behavior (and reminding the students every time to arrive on time), I finally asked the students straight up why they were never on time. And it turns out that the administrator scheduled the class to start at the same time as their other classes finished. And it takes a few minutes to walk between classes. So once we got that sorted out, we set the start time 15 minutes later and the students have been arriving on time. Amazing!

But then the other teacher quit teaching regularly. So I would often find out on the day of the class that the lesson I'd prepared wasn't what they were ready for. And they hadn't studied since the class I taught the previous week, so their English was quite rusty. It's hard to teach effectively that way.

But sometimes he'd teach, and the class would progress. So when is enough, enough?

I've felt pretty discouraged about the class. Because of their inconsistent attendance, distraction level, lack of consistent classes, and general lazy attitude towards studying, my assumption was that 80% of the class would fail the exam when they went to take it.

But this week was the review session before next week's exam. And they studied!

They were producing good sentences in English.

They were having discussions in English.

And maybe, just maybe, they'll pass their exam!