I think I'll quit ESL.

I decided, as part of my effort to become a better human being and move forward towards my goal of eventually joining the Peace Corps, that I wanted to start teaching ESL. Teaching ESL looks good on a resume to the Peace Corps (probably has something to do with them wanting you to, like, teach English abroad or something) and volunteering is good for the soul or something stupid like that. Anyway, I found an opportunity and started assisting a teacher at a local community center.

At first the experience was awesome. I've volunteered before, once at a local hospice administrative office (it made me feel like death) and a few times for a campaign (which varied from alright to crappy, depending on the company I kept). This was different; the teacher and the students were engaging and it wasn't too exhausting nor time-consuming. It's two nights awake, two hours a class. In the beginning, I was to assist some of the weaker students with just keeping up in class. The county had apparently run out of room in the "beginners" classes, and just started sticking students in the lower intermediate courses, where English just went over their head. One student in particular, Hakeem, grew so frustrated that when I tried to help him with the computer, he snapped "I no speak English!" which is pretty self-defeating. But I engaged him, forcing him to read aloud during class and dialoguing with him. Within just a couple of weeks, he was more comfortable speaking English and was able to practice on his own.

But now that some of the weaker students are more caught up, Kathy, the instructor, pretty much has nothing for me to do. I sit with one student who's more shy than behind and watch Kathy teach for most of the class. It could be interesting, learning English grammar and why, exactly, we phrase sentences the way we do; but it's not what I'm there for. I am there to help her teach. I am not a student teacher.

Additionally sometimes she flat out teaches the wrong thing. Just the other day she was teaching them about adjectives ("the green book," "the big chair") and started teaching them adverbs instead ("he jumped quickly," "she spoke shyly") which, if it was confusing for me, had to be impossible for most of the students.

"Kathy," I called, "aren't these adverbs?"
She snapped, "I'm just trying not to confuse them!"

That was Tuesday. Thursday, she pulled me aside before class and informed me that she didn't appreciate me scolding her in front of the class like that. I apologized and said that I was confused, and that I wasn't trying to make her look bad in front of her students, that I was looking for clarification more than anything else. But she was still annoyed. And later on, when she was teaching them about sounds and disobeying one of the rules that she had written, I gently pulled her aside during a short break and whispered the rule to her.

Again, "I'm just trying not to confuse them!" I have to tell you here that she's apparently one of the best teachers in the county.

So I decided to quit. I obviously have no further value there, and it's a waste of my nights. I'll tell her Tuesday.