Keep Calm and Carry On

I used to teach TESOL (teacher training, for those not in the know). One of the things that I used to tell the novice teachers was that in writing lessons, they should allow 3 times longer for writing than they think it will take. So: they think it will take 20 minutes...allow an hour. They think it will take an hour, allow 3.  It was something that I had learned through observation in my years of teaching. Students take much longer than you think, until you gain the experience to judge more accurately.
Today I took my students into the computer lab. I thought it would take 10 minutes. It took 35.
Apparently, I am still learning how to judge computer time.
So far, my writing lesson time scheme seems to apply. That students are slower than I expect is only one issue. The bigger issue, which simply amazes me every time I take students into the lab, is how non-existent their computer skills are. These are adult students from a wealthy, educated country. Should I be shocked? I am!
Today's task was to Google their favourite place, find an image of that place, and print one copy that they could bring back to the classroom. How hard could it be? 10 minutes, tops!!
I just finished reading an article from 1997 (yes....15 years ago, and before I had ever used a computer myself, much less owned one!) which warns about "the time it takes to develop basic keyboard skills and the fact that students' word processing ability is likely to vary within any class" and "for short language courses the time factor is particularly problematic: students may spend so much time learning basic word processing that they never get round to actually writing" (Jarvis, 1997). It seems I am dealing with exactly these problems, here in 2012! Incredible!
Two of the students could not remember their passwords to sign in. That required the tech admin guys to go into the main system to allow the students to change their passwords, wasting 15 minutes before they even got started. Most students found their images on Google relatively quickly, but then had no idea what to do next. We have no teaching computer in the lab, so I had no choice but to go around to each and every student and show them how to find Word, open Word, copy and paste, change the orientation to landscape, resize the picture, change the margins, and how to print. Some of the women did not know how to use a mouse, or what it means to 'left click' and 'right click'. Some of them could not navigate between Google and Word. One man could not type anything unless he was using an onscreen Arabic keyboard (refused to try anything in English), one could not understand how to copy and paste, but kept trying to crop the photo to "cut" it out of the background (bizarre??).  *sigh*...
At the end of 30 minutes, I was exhausted. My students proudly took their pics back to the classroom as I stood there shaking my head and thinking "Thanks gods I wasn't doing an actual WRITING activity!!" All they had to do was get one simple photo printed, and I felt like I had just run a marathon!
As I read the above mentioned article this evening, I knew that the author was talking to me. My course is extremely short. I only have them for 2 hours a day for six weeks. Jarvis is exactly right; if I am to have my students working with word processing, they will spend so much time learning the basics (how to use a mouse!!!) that they may never get around to actual writing! Is it worth it? I don't have an answer. It's exhausting and frustrating to be a computer teacher when I am supposed to be helping them with language skills. I am simply amazed that this level of ....what's the word? non-skill? unskill? non-proficiency? exists in 2012, and in students who think they are going to gain admittance to a Canadian university within the next year! When will I stop being amazed by this?
I am not deterred, however. As I mentioned in a previous post, the goal is normalization, and the only answer is to 'Keep calm and carry on'. I will continue to bring students into the lab for a variety of tasks, but I must remember to make allowance for 3 times longer that I expected....just as I taught my TESOL students years ago!

Reference: 

 Jarvis, H (1997), Word processing and writing skills: practical applications to language teaching textbooks. British Journal of Educational Technology 28(3), 165-175