My Experience as a Teaching Assistant

Like many students in CIEE, this semester I am taking the Teaching Pedagogy class. In this course we plan lessons, discuss classroom strategies and techniques, and learn how to become better teachers. The work that we do every week culminates with our “stage” (internship), where we act as an assistant in a local elementary, middle, or high school. For this internship we work with the head professor, as well as on our own, to create effective lesson plans for their English classes. It is intended to be both a helpful and interesting experience for French students to learn English from a native speaker.

For my teaching internship, I was placed in a “collège” (middle school), with a class of 4^ème, the equivalent of 8th grade in the United States. Every Tuesday morning I walk 20 minutes to the middle school, usually both nervous and excited. When I get there the students are outside on recess, so I squeeze through the crowd to get to my classroom. Then I set up my things and talk to the professor about what I will teach that day. So far I have taught lessons on how to describe others and objects, on animals, on Chicago, and on superlatives.

Unlike most of the other teaching internships that I’ve heard about, my class is divided into two groups. Every week I alternate between teaching these two groups, with about ten students in each. Teaching the class all alone is a little tricky for me, although I’m getting used to it. I believe is it harder in some ways to have to teach without the help of a head teacher, but at the same time, it’s also really nice to only have half of the class. This makes it possible for me to communicate with everyone and feel like I have enough control of the classroom.

Another difference between other internships and mine is that my professor leaves the subject matter up to me. Again, this is kind of scary because I don’t exactly know what I should be teaching them, but I also have a world of choices open to me. I have found that while my students are at a slightly lower level than I expected, they still know a lot and are eager to learn. It is a wonderful thing to see when a student correctly uses or references something that you have taught them!

All in all my experience as a teaching assistant has been a positive one so far. It is much more difficult than I thought, as I am having some unforeseen difficulties disciplining students who misbehave. However, I have also succeeded with many things. For example, I taught my class a greeting song that we sing at the beginning of every class. I am not only bettering my abilities working with students in a classroom setting, but I am also getting to know some wonderful and intelligent French kids in the process!

Emily Stephenson, St. Olaf College, Minnesota