Orientation in Graz

This week was the orientation in Graz for this year's English-language teaching assistants in Austria. Graz, pronounced GRAH-ts, is about 120 miles southwest of Vienna and is the capital of Styria (Steiermark). It is the second largest city in Austria, after Vienna, which is a bit of a joke considering that it can barely be classified a "city" at all. Whereas Vienna has 2.3 million inhabitants, Graz has 288,000, most of which are university students.

In Graz, we stayed in a "castle", specifically designed as a center for seminars. Each day, we listened to lectures designed to inform us about Austrian culture and we participated in workshops, designed to introduce us to teaching English in Austrian schools. The first lecturer gave a basic background of the program. The second lecture was a bit more interesting. Entitled "When Cultures Meet", the speaker challenged people's assumptions about Austria, about one another, and encouraged the audience to always be aware of what assumptions are being made and why. The third lecture was split between the Fulbright Commission and the British Council. Since the English-speaking teaching assistants not only come from the US, but also come from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, the US-assistants spoke with the Fulbright Commission representatives while all the other assistants spoke with the British Council representatives.

Aside from lectures, the main part of the orientation consisted of workshops. The four workshops dealt with: games and activities, pictures and media, texts, and the basic structure of a lesson. We also prepared a lesson in groups, which we then taught in real schools throughout Graz. My group had a class of 25 13-year-olds (3rd grade in Austria). We introduced ourselves, talked a little bit about where we come from (US and England), held a Q&A session, talked about differences between American and British English (comparing it to the differences between German words in Austria and Germany), and played a game where the students had to match vocabulary from American and British English. After all this we still had a little bit of time left, so we played Hangman and answered more questions. When we were talking to the teacher after class, she told us that most of the students in the class were immigrants, which means that English is at least their third, if not fourth language. It was clear that some students did not speak German as their native language, but I wouldn't have guessed that this was actually the case for most of the students. As I listened to their classroom conversations, it seemed that they spoke better German than I did. In actuality, they probably just speak better slang than I do!

The teacher also commented that the thirteen-year-old third-graders are probably the toughest class to teach. If that's true, I feel fairly confident that I can handle the other classes. I've been told that I could be expected to teach students anywhere between 10 and 18 years old, but several past teaching assistants and another teacher at my school (who is also my landlady) said that I will probably be placed in the older, more advanced classes, i.e. 15- to 18-year-olds. That would certainly be my preference. Although I already have experience teaching 7- to 10-year-olds (as well as tutoring college students), I would feel more useful with the older classes. There's only so much you can do with the younger classes; the older classes are preparing for their Matura (huge graduation exam). They are nearly fluent at this point and can discuss meaningful topics pertaining to all sorts of aspects of society. Apparently, the favorite topic is the death penalty; I heard this multiple times from many different people throughout the orientation. Government structure is another common topic; I'll have to brush up on my knowledge of British government because apparently the students are required to compare the two.

So Monday is the Big Day. I will meet with my contact teacher at the Gymnasium (college-prep school for 10- to 18-year-olds) on Monday morning. After I fill out piles of paperwork, she should give my my basic schedule and I will need to fill in the details. From what I understand so far, she will arrange for me to teach in 10 to 13 different classes, meaning that I will come into each class once every 2 to 3 weeks. It will be my responsibility to introduce myself to each of the teachers and to discuss my role in each of their classes, i.e. listen to them tell me what they want me to do in their classes. At this point, I'm more worried about arranging a seemingly complicated teaching schedule than I am about actually teaching. We'll see what Monday brings.

Word of the Day: die FremdsprachenassistentIn = foreign-language teaching assistant (24 letters; the capital "I" is part of the German spelling reform (die Rechtschreibreform) and refers to both male and female assistants. Otherwise, die Assistentin = female assistant, der Assistent = male assistant)