The truth is, classroom
teachers never have enough time to teach everything. Especially the 50/50 model
Immersion teachers. 50/50 doesn’t mean using the target language in the Immersion
classroom. It means students spend half of the day in English and the other
half in the target language class. To
teach and to review in half of the regular teaching time is hard. All the
Immersion teachers will agree on this.
To make the matter worse, the
children often have a harder time focusing and learning in the afternoon
(including adults). As teachers, we also feel tired in the afternoon, which is
not fair to the students. In the fifth year of teaching, my partner teacher and
I finally made a change that hopefully can reduce some struggles.
A previous partner teacher,
who now has retired, and I used to switch the classes every month. We still
could see the struggle but were too overwhelmed to come up with a solution. This
year’s new partner teacher and I decided to switch every two weeks. Then eventually we switched every week.
We both like the change very
much and feel the change has helped most of the students. Teachers have asked if it was too much
trouble for the kids; the answer is no. The students basically remember it
better than the teachers do. They know where to go in the morning. A few
children forgot, but the others will remind them where to go.
The benefits of switching
weekly are many. Due to the busy schedule and extra curricula classes such as
library, computer, PE, music or art through out the week, students normally
will miss some target language and English instruction time. By switching every week, the students can
miss the instruction equally in the afternoon or in the morning instead of the
same students missing it all the time.
Sometimes there will be
volunteers or aides who come in to assist.
Often their schedule is limited and they can only be there at certain
times. If the classes switch only once a
month or even longer, one of the classes will miss this extra help for as long
as it takes to switch.
The afternoon is harder for
students to learn and for teachers to teach. Too exhausted students trapped in
the same time for a month or longer, it is not fair. Both English learning and
target language learning suffer in the afternoon. By switching classes weekly,
the students can get instructions equally.
I have learned that some Immersion
schools never switch morning and afternoon classes. Some switch once a year and
some switch every quarter. However, every teacher who talks about this all has
the same complaint: “afternoon class is so hard to teach.” Then they will add
that schools won’t allow them to switch classes often enough.
I believe if everyone looks
at the benefit to the students, and the help it provides teachers, classes will be switched more often.
Marty Chen