January 11, 2010

  • What's in a name?

    I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions, but this year I sort of made one without really thinking of it as such. I decided that I would make a massive effort to actually learn more of my students' names.

    Now, I put my hand up and admit that I was a bit slack with this in the first term. I could have made more of an effort and cracked it straight away, but the first week was a little overwhelming with everything else, and then the realisation that I had over 300 students who I would see once a week in groups of up to 30 (whilst other teachers have maybe 5 or 6 groups that they see 3 times a week) left me deciding it was just too big a challenge and there was no point trying. I think I was also a bit worried about having to pronounce their Italian names and maybe sounding very silly doing so. Chatting to other assistants reassured me that none of them had learnt the names of their students either and so I carried on that way, getting by without knowing them. 

    However, I've always had this guilt in the back of my mind about not knowing more than a handful of names and the confirmation that I really ought to know them came when one of the first things we were told at the CELTA course was that it's crucial to know your students' names. I mean, I have known that all along, but just decided I couldn't do it and I'd just have to put up with not being able to (and justified it to myself that way).

    This term though, having resolved to change the situation, I have staretd working on it and I really wish I had sorted it out sooner! I've copied down the class lists in each of the classes I've had so far, and then with a little clever trawling through Facebook (just looking at lists of names with profile pics - don't worry, I'm not stalking my students or anything and couldn't see anything else even if I wanted to!), I have devised myself a class by class literal Facebook. I haven't found everyone obviously, but a large number. It's amazing what a difference it makes!
    In my first class today I was able to address each and every student by name (a small class which made it easier!) and actually pick on students to answer my questions. In my second class I surprised them all by starting the lesson by picking out 5 students by name to answer my questions (I stopped after 5 as they were the only names I knew!!) which got a cheer out of them! The first boy almost fell off his seat when I said his name! It was hilarious. But now I feel much more confident about addressing them!
    Then on my way downstairs I crossed paths with the troublemaker from one of my most difficult classes. I happened to have stumbled over his name on FB as well, so I was able to say hi and then added 'it's Roberto, isn't it?' to which I got an excited 'si!' and a smile.

    So with a bit of revision before each lesson of the list I've got so far, a bit more detective work and some more memorising before going to sleep I might actually know all of them by the end of the year!! (At some point I might be able to remember their names out of context in the corridors as well - I think it was fluke with Roberto because he stood out in my head as being the boy who was throwing chairs around the room in our last lesson! I can't really pick out which class each student is in when I see them outside class yet).

    Anyway, there have been a couple of cases where I've found out the name of a student I see a lot (on the bus for example) and now suddenly I know what to call them! It's exciting!!
    Oh and it turns out that only a handful of them actually know MY name, and there's only one of me for them to learn. So that makes me feel better. As did the fact that not all of the students knew the names of all the other students in their own class (found that out when I did a game in a couple of classes to recap names and what they did during the holidays).