A teacher of English as a Foreign Language, Transcaucasia

14 May 2020 

Life before Covid-19 

I am originally from Africa and I have been living in this country for almost six years. I came here to study at the university and then started to teach English. I work in a private school in the capital. I teach grades one, two, three and eight students. 

 I really love teaching kids because their mindset is totally different; they are so open to new things. They’re sponges, they accumulate stuff; so I would say it was much easier to teach them than middle school students. They were ready to learn and whatever I said they really took it seriously and then they tried to speak like me, they imitated me. 

Before Covid 19, my greatest challenge was classroom management. That’s something that I have been complaining about ever since I started teaching here. Luckily, I found ways to get students involved, engaged and be quiet. We established routines like happy faces, sad faces, writing things on the board, allocating roles to each student. 

 It is difficult to be an African in this country. It’s a great challenge every single day. It’s something I haven't gotten over.  

I feel like I’m being judged differently. First, I’m from Africa, second I’m black. I’m being judged by all of those things and I feel I need to prove myself more than everyone else and that can be really hard, that can be really daunting. 

 The students are lovely. I mean, I don’t have any issues with the students. They are curious, they like something different. The way they receive me in class gives me hope. They are always excited to be in class, they are always present. 

I think the parents expect a lot more from me in the sense that if their kids don’t speak English in a certain amount of time it’s my fault. 

How life has changed because of Covid-19 

The government closed schools on March 14th and then we started teaching on the 15th; we went directly from face-to-face to online the next day. No one asked us if we had computers or if we had the internet at home. It was just a switch. So nobody asked us anything about these issues. Some other teachers started teaching on their phone using Viber until they could sort themselves out. 

 We didn’t get any training whatsoever. We were just told to download Teams, register our classes and then start teaching. I started with grade three and grade eight and then the next week grade one, two. They sent some guidelines but they were in their mother tongue and I couldn’t read them so I had to figure most of the things out myself. I actually had Zoom training with another teachers’ group that I am involved in, not from the school.  

 In the beginning, we were asked to use Microsoft Teams which didn’t work on my computer very well. It kept shutting down in the middle of the class and sometimes it would get stuck and wouldn’t let me share my screen. Also, in grade two, I have fourteen students and in Teams I could only see four people at a time on the screen. The parents were at home watching lessons; they complained that their kids were not participating enough and I should break the group into two. So I broke the group into two, calling each for twenty minutes and again they didn’t receive it well. Then I decided to change from Teams to Zoom. Everything seemed to have solved itself, everything seemed to be working well. 

 I try to do the same kind of thing except the interaction and monitoring; we keep to the routine, we do the same things we did in class, the only difference is that I can't go and see what they are writing in their books. We start with a word warmer and make sure that we don’t lose that; we sometimes play games online. Most children love online teaching. They just like being on the screen, communicating and doing stuff.  

Greatest concerns and challenges  

When Covid 19 happened, I was given less support, I’m less supported. 

I would say compared to other teachers and I wouldn’t get away with simple mistakes unlike other teachers so I feel like I’m being placed under a microscope 24 hours. It’s like picking on not the positive but mostly the negative things that come up. 

 I’m not being understood. I don’t wanna sound negative but…how can I put it… it’s been more negative than positive for me. I’ve just lost my job because of it. Because of the technical issues, which I was blamed for and they decided to end my contract. I wasn’t expecting it. The reason that was given to me was never brought up to my concern. I never knew about those things. I just feel it is because of online teaching, because I had computer issues. Everything was closed, I couldn’t fix my computer but I managed to fix it and then everything started going well. Most parents didn’t like switching from Teams to Zoom, so they wrote a letter and said they didn’t like that. The principal called me and I did tell her about my computer issues but she didn't say anything about that. She took it back to face to face teaching. I didn’t have a chance to explain. If she thought so, why didn’t she let me know about those things then and why now? I’ve seen worse situations than what I’ve been accused of and the teachers were not reprimanded. I just feel that it’s because of this online teaching, it has nothing to do with face to face. I don’t think that the parents’ intention was to end my contract they were just pressing their concerns but then the school made this decision. I don’t even think that the parents are aware. But I need to keep going. I don’t have to show my students what is going on. We are having normal lessons, we are having fun lessons, too. 

 I have no motivation to stay in this country. I just feel like it’s the same cycle. Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve had the same issues so there’s no moving forward, I feel I'm just being stuck so it’s time I find a way to move to a more diverse community, in an area where things might be different. We have different cultures.  

They expect me to learn their culture and I need to unlearn my own culture which is something that is impossible to do, the way I was brought up, the way I was taught and that’s what I’ve been implementing here. So this clash of cultures is the thing. 

 Teaching online takes a lot more time than face to face - it’s tiring, it’s a lot tiring. Even though I was working in two places before, I wasn’t feeling so tired as I am right now. Being on the computer for a long time and searching for materials, especially online materials that can work for both students and myself, takes a lot of time. You need to keep students engaged and you need to find fun activities because some of them, especially my middle schoolers, like playing games. They find the textbook boring.  

 Some students aren’t attending online lessons because they don’t have access to the computer or the internet at home. There are days when the power goes off and if you are using Wi-Fi, it can disturb your learning process. It is also a lot more difficult to engage students. There are students that are in class but are not participating. Especially, when their videos are turned off or you’re calling their names and they are not answering. You don’t know what to do. You ask them to turn on their camera but they don’t turn it on or turn it on for one second then off again. 

 When I was teaching face to face, when I was done with school I was done with school but now I have tonnes of messages, I don’t even see some of them. I get messages all the time, late at night, on weekends - it’s non-ending. It seems like they figured out a way to communicate directly with me, so it’s kind of fun for them sending me messages. Back in school they didn’t have my email address or my Facebook or anything like that but now they have Teams so they can message me instantly. 

Emerging opportunities 

Learning how to teach online is a good experience and will help me in the future. Learning how to manage students online and how to use these tools is very positive as well. We also learn how to be patient and resilient in this time. Lots of positive things have come out of this. The only negative is that my contract will end but that’s okay.