The Honeymoon Ends, the Real Work Begins

They say that, like most things in life, there's a honeymoon period during which the students and teachers are on their best behavior, truly enjoying the experience and developing great relationships. See as how I had already broke up two fights and yelled several times before the end of the first week, I don't think this period of time really lasted very long for me in this first year of teaching. Just as an update, I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and, with my beginning ESL class, everyday is a battle for my students' attention. This week I worked on the 5 Ws and nouns and verbs with advanced ESL. Although they listened to me intently, I don't think that the majority of them have any idea what a noun or a verb is at this point. I will be giving my first quiz tomorrow and then I will know if any thing I have said has stuck in those sixth grade minds. On a high note, all of my homeroom students are doing an excellent job reading during the first twenty minutes of school. I find that this is the time of the day when every child is most engaged. Therefore, what a great time to do reading. After grading my reading comprehension diagnostics, I found out that none of my students have greater than a fourth grade reading level in English and most of them are at first or second grade. Still, I have so many ideas of what to work on with this class and find that most days we don't get through everything on the agenda.
Now back to beginning ESL. If only they would stop talking! Unfortunately, this class has little or no respect for my authority and, as I already mentioned, each day is a battle for their attention. It is extremely disheartening to realize that the majority of these students have no desire to learn English. All of their other course work is in Spanish and their communities, families, and even their entertainers all speak Spanish. Why would they want to learn English! I have tried to communicate how much I value the Spanish language and Latino culture to them but how necessary it is to learn in English in order to have many opportunities in the United States. I realize that second language acquisition is an extremely difficult process and now I know that without some intrinsic motivation it seems almost impossible. Nonetheless, I know that this class is learning a few words in English such as quiet, silence, stop, talking, listen, etc.
This week has been better than last because I have some long term goals for my students and unit plans (Memoir and All About Me). I have also taken some time to stop by Rohr's in the evenings and even made it to the library last night to return some books. I plan to go to the Whitney Museum tomorrow evening and will hopefully make it our for salsa dancing on Saturday night. Now I'm creating my own honeymoon with New York City and hoping that my planning for the real work I face at school will get a little bit better each day.