If you thought I forgot about my my blog, you are right. My brain only has so much space, and "blog" got shoved somewhere behind "learn the English verb phrase"--Anyway, I wanted to reflect a little on how this semester is going.
To begin, the classes I am taking this semester are very different from last. I have Sociolinguistics, a rapid-fire overview of an entire discipline concerned with he intersection of language and society. We read authors like Deborah Tannen, a linguist made famous for her analysis of the conversations at a Thanksgiving dinner. We discuss topics like African American Vernacular English, code-switching, and even everyday situations in which language plays a key role.
I also have a Listening and Speaking Methodology class, which is highly practical, although I wish the class period was about three hours long so we could have more time to talk about teaching methods.
The third class I take is called "Grammatical Foundations" or something, and it is quite possibly the nerdiest thing I have ever participated in. No surprise, then, that I am quite smitten with our lectures on how to determine the aspect and tense of a verb phrase. The professor is literally world-renown for his word in Corpus Linguistics (a sub field of applied linguistics in which thousands of real-life texts and conversations are compiled into a database for analysis of real language use), and he is the wizard of grammar. What I hate about the class is that the intuitions I have come to rely upon so heavily are consistently wrong. While it can be frighteningly systematic, there is officially nothing intuitive about grammar. On the other hand, through the Grammar class, I am slowly developing a strong sense for the "rules," or least the tendencies, of the English language, which are immediately applicable in the classroom and the Writing Center.
Speaking of the classroom, I have a completely different set up this semester. I'm teaching a section of ENG 105 that is devoted entirely to students who have reached level 5 in the Program in Intensive English. I have 12 Saudi men, a few Kuwaiti students, and a handful of Chinese and Korean students. Despite being in the same level, these students have massive variation in their commands of English, which has proven to be an interesting challenge for me. Actually, I really enjoy teaching this class because it combines so many of my favorite things: writing, ESL, international students, and graduate assistantships (the last one = food and rent). My students are working on their first big project, and I am already so proud of their hard work. Of course there are difficulties with this demographic, but I will save that for another day.
Finally, this semester I have a new practicum assignment. I co-teach a class for Chinese scholars who are visiting NAU. About four Chinese professors come every Wednesday evening to what we call "English Enhancement". It's sort of a glorified conversation class, but we also demonstrate the research process, presentation techniques and even play games to relax. Although I find the additional preparation and classroom time commitment somewhat cumbersome, I think this is a valuable experience for me to get to know professionals from another country.
Speaking of cumbersome preparation, my workload this semester is INTENSE. Last semester, I thought that there was no way that I could handle any more work, but this semester I find myself constantly short on time, working on weekends, and generally rushing through everything just to keep up. I have several hours of reading and homework to prepare for each class, and I must take care of business for ENG 105, work in the Writing Center and tutor six hours a week, hold office hours, work on group projects, prepare presentations...you get the picture. It's non-stop. I wake up at 5, and crawl into bed at 10, completely exhausted. Some days feel totally rewarding, but some days it's hard to remember why exactly I want to do this to myself.
Grad school is shaping up just as I expected: high anxiety, low sleep, but awesome. I have a great group of friends, I have food and shelter, and I get to do what I love all day everyday. A good life.
By the way, I have also been going to yoga in the evenings, which if nothing else, is a full hour in which I cannot check email, grade papers, or read a research article. A welcome break and distraction from computer screens and subject-verb agreement.
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