Teacher Emergencies

As in any job, there are days where everything seems to conspire against you in a declaration of war against your sanity.

Now, for teachers, this is normally hormonal teenagers going through the most extreme of existential crises, that we could not possible understand. Today, however, was not one of those days. No, instead, it was a day when all the computers and the school’s internet were unexpectedly down (in addition to almost being late due to a traffic accident and a metro strike).

The golden rule for teachers – always have a backup.

With technology rendered obsolete, this meant back to basics and paper handouts for a lot of teachers. I, however, tried to remain dynamic in my approach to the classes and led a number of games with the students that encouraged them to work together in teams, and individually, so as to practice their English without a sense of disruption to the overall lessons.

I had to act quickly to make sure I was able to efficiently and effectively control the situation. I borrowed some dice from one of my colleagues so as I would have enough for a class board game of snakes and ladders, and had the children use markers from their pencil cases (rubbers, pen lids etc). The different versions of the game promoted the practice of different verb tenses, and the use of vocabulary for different body parts.

Later we also enjoyed a team activity of 20Q, where I wrote the name of a famous person on the board and one child had to ask questions to guess who they were.

With younger learners, we also played the alphabet shopping game, and introduced Simon Says.

Although the lessons were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, the day challenged my ability to roll with the punches (or dice) and, whilst highly tiring, the classes generally enjoyed the day and mentioned this to me on leaving class, which always serves as a positive reinforcement for myself.