ESOL Tutor, United Kingdom 

 

Life before Covid -19 

I’m currently teaching ESOL for Work at an adult education institute in the UK.  The students on our courses are often refugees who have experienced the traumas of conflict. On this course I had 11 students at the start of whom 2 were in a women’s refuge with young children; others were economic migrants; most had children, and even grandchildren here. Experience of education and study skills were wide. On the one hand, I had two students who absolutely struggled with reading so they couldn’t work independently, while at the other end of the spectrum I had a Latvian couple who were enthusiastic and had well-developed study skills. Fortunately, I had a learning support assistant (LSA) who worked in the classroom with the 2 non-readers, and increasingly, I did a completely separate lesson with the majority.  

Unfortunately, the general atmosphere has not been great in the space where we work.  An unsuccessful Ofsted outcome for the institution as a whole had brought so much stress over a two-year period, and  

I’m still reeling from that dreadful process towards re-inspection, where external consultants were drafted in, and a regime of observations and grading unfolded with the ‘million’ features of a good lesson plastered around the staff room. 

Meanwhile, many of my colleagues who were inspiring teachers were made redundant during that period as the priorities of the service changed, and a whole department was axed because it didn’t fit in with the new ‘focus’.   

Life in lockdown  

We closed our doors on 20th March, and had the weekend to get online. For the two weeks before Easter all tutors were creating Padlets. But when we came back after the holiday, generic Moodle courses had been created for us in themed weeks. I chose not to use Moodle mainly because of recurrent issues with ease of use for students, which we had already experienced in our computer sessions before lockdown (complex login procedures that older and less literate students struggled with). Secondly the Moodle course provided didn’t seem to be the right level for my students. So I continued with creating my own Padlet pages for the 8 students I have left.  

Zoom whole class sessions have been extremely difficult to set up – 2 of the 8 cannot use that technology as their phones and WiFi connection don’t allow for it. We have managed to get a few students at the same time and they’ve been happy to see each other.  

But there’s so much interruption with children and noise so it doesn’t seem a good way to use their time. 

They have such different needs and abilities so now I contact them individually. For example on Monday, I have my Zoom meeting with the Latvian couple who are sitting ready in their kitchen, they’re very organised, it’s quiet and peaceful, they’ve done the work, their 18 year old daughter’s helping with the general discussion, so it’s all marvellous.  

But then I contact a student who is in one of his two rooms with his 5 year-old daughter running around the room screaming and shouting. His wife is also shouting so it’s complete pandemonium. 

 To find quiet he goes to the bedroom; he gets out a cigarette; he puts it in his mouth and he’s just staring out of the window; he can’t actually escape that noise. I am conscious that he’s trying to please but it’s often very difficult for him to create the space in the Zoom meeting time to actually speak to me.   

I think what Covid has allowed us to do is see how the students are living, what the home situation is like, just to get grounded somehow. And it’s enabled us to find some way of talking about that: ‘how do you study? Where can you go that’s quiet? … Do you like quiet?’  It’s been a real insight and one thing that’s really struck me is that before this Covid situation, I had a much greater control over the teaching and learning environment. 

I was able to set it up as I needed, I knew what equipment I had available, I could supply things, photocopy, give work out, collect it in, group people; I could go over and see what was happening.  Previous issues like phones ringing in class seem minor in comparison.  And I think it’s easy to feel bad about what’s happening with the overall ideal of progress. I’m practically passing out with joy when a student is managing to type in the comments box on the Padlet page. For that particular student this is an achievement, so I think we need to rethink how we are measuring progress right now. 

I do spend more hours preparing than I did before. But, although this is quite exhausting, I have found it very rewarding. I’m experimenting and using my creativity and teachers are sharing new resources.   

It’s been exciting and creative but in the long run it’s proving a struggle to maintain. 

The Latvians are working hard and are racing ahead. They can work independently and they can use the materials and that’s wonderful because the face-to-face conversations can go further. But I have students who I feel are really falling behind; they struggle with basic instructions, they struggle with reading, they struggle with recognising cultural features that I take for granted so now the class is even more split. I’m lucky to have an LSA but I need to prepare work for her and the beginner readers, work for the Latvians, work for those who are falling behind. A second reason for feeling over-whelmed is that I’ve recently discovered that each teacher is expected to plan and produce materials for 3 sessions of the final weeks of the ‘Moodle course template’. I’m desperately trying to find and write materials that are going to be appropriate for other courses and students that I haven’t met – the topic is Review- I don’t have time to go back through the template course to see what that might be, especially as I haven’t been using it. The pressure is compounded by each Moodle course being audited by the work coaches to check that it is up to standard and to check that our students are accessing it regularly – and they’re not.  

However, in comparison to many, I’m not really challenged at all by the lockdown;  

I do not miss the journey to work, and I don’t miss the stress of the atmosphere where we work. 

 I’ve got a garden and the only thing that’s very stressful is thinking about my own son and my own feelings of guilt. He doesn’t want to go out; he wants to play online computer games with his friends, that’s the playground for him. And it’s difficult for him to complete all the work they send on a tablet so I’m having to share my laptop with him. Another thing that’s happening is that my son’s school is phoning as a welfare thing.  

At the beginning I was thinking why are you phoning? ... it’s not going well, you’re phoning me to check up on me and I’m a rubbish parent and I’m not supporting my child.  But actually, I think it’s helping to remind my son that school still exists; It’s helping me feel less on my own. 

Support and emerging opportunities 

I do however feel supported by the work coaches because I have personally found them very upbeat and quite humble as well. The coach I have worked with enthuses a love of learning and wanting to make things work. She is honest and this honesty enabled us to have a respectful dialogue as colleagues to look at issues and hopefully communicate problems with expectations to management. I also continue to get support from my LSA and it has been fantastic because with this Padlet situation I’m now much more involved on the reading programme by adapting materials and talking about what works and doesn’t work. I wasn’t as engaged before. It’s been wonderful and I’m working much more closely with her.  

I think that’s another thing about the way I was as a teacher before - I struggled a bit to team-teach. I didn’t really know how to do it so the way that that has opened up has been very good. 

Future concerns and hopes 

I suppose I am worried about the service.  I’m worried about the cost of my 8 students for those people who are making funding decisions.   

Will they just see this as a luxury? I wonder how I can prove to myself that what I’m asking the students to do is useful. 

I think about an older student - does he get a sense of dignity from lessons? Is that just wishful thinking on my part? One thing that strikes me about the work we do is how many students have young children or teenagers still at school and, if you don’t support the adults then the children are even less supported.  

But this is an amazing time and I can see many positives. I think phoning the students forces me to make specific time with individual students and I think in the classroom sometimes I’ve been carried away by the activities and how the activities are going and assessments as ‘products’. Here, I’ve actually been listening, really listening. I’m thinking how I could recapture that when we go back into the classroom.  

And how do I see my future? I suppose all this time I have been wondering whether I can move out of working for this organisation and perhaps go and do something else after this. I think maybe it was that Ofsted experience when the emphasis was on ‘outstanding’.  

It made me so anxious about still not being the ‘perfect’ teacher after all these years, all the while watching fellow colleagues - great teachers lose their jobs in the service overhaul.  But now I feel invigorated. What’s most invigorating is the discussions with other teachers. 

There have been some changes in the organisation’s culture and we are having to communicate with each other. I think that’s what I need for the future; I just need to be in an environment where people can work collaboratively in a flatter structure, share ideas, where people care, and can be enthusiastic rather than exhausted and constantly examined.  

It’s an opportunity isn’t it?