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Published: December 16th 2010
Hey all, so this is just a quick blog to update you guys on what I am up to at the minute. To be honest probably don't have time to be sitting here writing this but I thought, what the hell I need a little break😊 !
So it's all go, go, go at the minute. Two weeks ago we had mid term exams. Each of us foreign teachers had to orally test each of our students individually from age 7upwards, the very young classes don't have exams. I had over 80 students to test in one weekend so believe me it was an intense weekend for both us and the kids. For the most part they all did pretty good, the exams weren't too difficult thankfully. However I did get the odd blank stare when I asked a question and the grammar in some parts was very dodgy to say the least but on a whole they were okay. Now for the next part of mid terms, writing up the reports.... again with over 80 students this took a LONG time, especially when you've a particularly weak student and you have to try to be very creative in your writing so that the parents don't think their kids are terrible at English, or for the really bold students when you want to write "your child is a demon in the class" it's quite a challenge to write this in a way that gets the message across without being too blunt! Now when I hear any teachers (Fiona, Gemma etc.) complaining about writing reports I will fully empathise with you guys in future.
So after that hectic weekend of mid-terms, last weekend then was all about starting to teach Christmas songs to each of our classes. This sounds like fun but when you have to fit this into a normal lesson it's not so much fun. Firstly most of these songs are new to the children melodies, words ect, then you have your assistant Chinese teacher who doesn't know the song either so it's all up to you to sing.... and as you all know singing was never a strong talent of mine so leading a whole class with a completely new song was definitely interesting. I did however teach one of my classes "grandma got run over by a reindeer" which went down a real treat!! They loved this song, one of the other teachers is doing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth"!! The funnier the better, we are of course doing some of the more traditional ones aswell but anything that is too based on religion is not really suitable as most of them don't understand anything about the religious meaning of Christmas. It is taught in some of their public schools but only at the higher levels.
But the craziness doesn't stop there, over the next three weekends we have open house lessons which means the parents (which of course will include grandparents, and other extended family members) are able to come in and view our lessons. Of course this means lessons have to be as good as possible and as active and exciting as we can make them. So lots of extra time will go into planning them, we have had workshops this week to focus on this. The only good thing is that we can decide when the parents can come to see which lesson. I have set up my timetable for the next three weeks for the parents to come in, but I am not allowing any parents in on Christmas day, bad enough I have to teach 😞 I'm certainly not going to worry about the added pressure of parents on that day of all days.
And one last thing as if I wasn't busy enough is that for the Christmas party night... I have been told I have to do an Irish dancing performance with some of the children. Okay firstly haven't done Irish dancing properly in about 14years except for a bit of set dancing or a bit of messing around when I've had a few too many drinks. Now not only do I have to dance, they expect me to teach the kids also.... I have roughly 1hour tomorrow and one hour next week with these kids of about 8years old to pull something off!!! It's going to be pretty bloody amusing. I spent a good part of yesterday trying to find Irish dancing music online that was slow enough. Believe me I will get this performance videotaped as it is going to be something to remember but for all the wrong reasons!!! On that note I'm off now to decide on a dance routine of some sort.... and try to find music to go with it. Thank god the Chinese have never seen Irish dancing before because at least that way they'll not have a clue whats right or wrong! A wee bit of Irish music and it'll be fine right??!!!
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anonymous
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Best of luck tomorrow with the dancing! Have fun with it and I know you'll do great:)))