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[Xarex]

So I volunteer as a teacher's aid - ESL. I'm in Israel for a year. I know some Hebrew -- enough to command, enough to demand, but not enough to talk about everything.

The teacher I work with had a meeting today, and left me alone for 2 hours -- 1 hour with 20 kids and the other with another 20 kids. They were second graders.

None of them spoke any English at all. She left me with the assignment they had to do and that was that.

Well, to make a long story short.. and although they just weren't grasping the concept of me saying that "I don't understand what you are saying to me, I'm sorry." -- I managed to get through those 2 hours.

In the beginning, I really cared. I wanted them to work at it. The good students, of course, did their work. The slackers.. just didn't want to do anything but have a free period. Expected of kids.. I was probably the same way. But by the middle of the class, I had the attitude of, "I just don't care.. do whatever you will.. just leave me alone."


Anyone else been in a similar experience of being unable to communicate with a class full of children? It wasn't so much that I couldn't communicate with them -- it was more of the fact that they knew they could take advantage of saying they don't understand me because they know I'm an English teacher.