I got into school today with no idea what I was going to do with the third years today for fourth period. It's a shame, on the surface the class should be great. It's the older students and the class has only 15 students as appose to 40-45 (seriously, class sizes here? Kind of nuts.), and I can teach them anything I want.
There in lies its greatest potential and it's biggest weakness.
They have no textbook, no curriculum, they will not be tested orally in their English exams, meaning that my lesson is really one they don't have to worry about. The teacher that I 'team teach' (me: What shall we do? him: do... what you like) with a certified English teacher that speaks significantly less English than my better students in the class. One who can't even translate what we're going to do when needed even though I've gone through it slowly and carefully before class with him and he's told me he understands.
Basically I have absolutely no guide, and it seems like such a wasted opportunity.
Last week I had them writing haiku in English, which was quite fun. This week I have some riddles that I'm going to get them into pairs to translate and then try and solve together. I made up the worksheets, gathered riddles online with language simple enough for them to be able to translate accurately (er... fingers crossed) and still make them think for the answer. Then everything goes dark.
Quite literally; the builders earthquake-proofing one side of school knocked the power out. All my handouts are still on my computer. No printers.Quelle horreur. The prospect of having to hand-write 15 handouts looms large before me.
Luckily the power is back on now and you'd better believe I took the opportunity to print hard copies fairly quickly. I would have printed a hard copy (singular) but the school decided to give us all new photocopiers that no one really knows how to work. (They don't photocopy exactly, they ghost a master copy of the paper and then give you however many copies of that. Unfortunately no one quite knows how to redo the master so it's a bit of a mess).
Well, I have half an hour before class. I'm sure my team teacher will show up in 20 minutes to check what we're doing. I don't know why he bothers. I'm trying to be more patient with him this term because I think the students may have picked up on my frustrations and the fact that he can't translate things when they need it, and no matter what I think of him, they should be able to respect the fact that he's their teacher.
Next week is bunkasai: Japanese school festival. It's a little like a school fete but the students are much more involved. I'll try to take pictures!
There in lies its greatest potential and it's biggest weakness.
They have no textbook, no curriculum, they will not be tested orally in their English exams, meaning that my lesson is really one they don't have to worry about. The teacher that I 'team teach' (me: What shall we do? him: do... what you like) with a certified English teacher that speaks significantly less English than my better students in the class. One who can't even translate what we're going to do when needed even though I've gone through it slowly and carefully before class with him and he's told me he understands.
Basically I have absolutely no guide, and it seems like such a wasted opportunity.
Last week I had them writing haiku in English, which was quite fun. This week I have some riddles that I'm going to get them into pairs to translate and then try and solve together. I made up the worksheets, gathered riddles online with language simple enough for them to be able to translate accurately (er... fingers crossed) and still make them think for the answer. Then everything goes dark.
Quite literally; the builders earthquake-proofing one side of school knocked the power out. All my handouts are still on my computer. No printers.Quelle horreur. The prospect of having to hand-write 15 handouts looms large before me.
Luckily the power is back on now and you'd better believe I took the opportunity to print hard copies fairly quickly. I would have printed a hard copy (singular) but the school decided to give us all new photocopiers that no one really knows how to work. (They don't photocopy exactly, they ghost a master copy of the paper and then give you however many copies of that. Unfortunately no one quite knows how to redo the master so it's a bit of a mess).
Well, I have half an hour before class. I'm sure my team teacher will show up in 20 minutes to check what we're doing. I don't know why he bothers. I'm trying to be more patient with him this term because I think the students may have picked up on my frustrations and the fact that he can't translate things when they need it, and no matter what I think of him, they should be able to respect the fact that he's their teacher.
Next week is bunkasai: Japanese school festival. It's a little like a school fete but the students are much more involved. I'll try to take pictures!
12:22 |
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