Chamorro Lessons Ta'lo
I began teaching the Chamorro language formally at the University of Guam this past semester. It was a very eye-opening experience. After 10 years of classes in the community, whether they be in coffee shops, community centers or via email, it was both empowering and frightening to have a classroom that was mine to design for 220 minutes each week. I found that alot of my informal style worked well, but that I needed to produce more materials and handouts to keep students engaged. More and more I realize students have trouble just listening and following instructions but constantly need a sheet of paper in front of them telling them what is what. When you organize lessons in a coffee shop only those that want to learn will attend, but when you teach a class the overwhelming majority who attend many not want to learn but simply want to pass and so I learned I needed to recognize this lack of motivation and compensate for it. But because I was focusing on teaching in the classroom I