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Published: November 28th 2008
(posted by Megan 11-27)
Ok, so you’ve got everything planned out perfectly, you’ve got all your pictures and charts drawn, your activities planned out, and your lesson plan worked out to perfection. You think you’re gonna do just great - you think you might just knock some socks off. And then? WHAM!! You get your
own feet knocked out from under you…
Tonight I taught my first class. It was just AWFUL. There were things I did just flat wrong even for a beginner, there were things I could have done better were I a bubblier personality type or a more experienced teacher, but a lot of it was just the dynamic of the people there versus the dynamic I expected to have, and I just didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
I expected 6-7 competitive students that love games - about half of which were pretty much intermediate (thereby being able to lead and help the other half). What I got instead were 3 people: one intermediate and two beginners. So all the games I had planned for pairs or teams went out the window. Had I had two or four, it would have been a much different night. As it was, I couldn’t have them work in pairs, I tried to have them work as three together, but they never ever did (and to my credit, I think they understood they were supposed to) and all my games were set up for two teams of three, so I only had two copies and therefore they couldn’t compete individually. Not that as individuals it would have been a competition anyway, because like I said, I had two beginners that didn’t get it and one intermediate that got it pretty much right away. And I was expecting more intermediate students, so all the activities were too advanced for the beginners… One of the worksheets that I had I knew beforehand was a little advanced and was going to modify it but I ran out of time (oh why oh why didn’t I
make time?), so that was a complete disaster; I wrote on the board in permanent marker… yes permanent; I made up a game that I didn’t try out before class and as it turns out, I really should have (still a good game, but it needs a few pretty important tweaks); and oh, did I say? My teaching partner didn’t show up. Ha. And I could go on, but why?
But ok, it was a disaster, but I don’t feel too bad because I really think it had more to do with the dynamic and level (or varying levels) of the class relative to what I was expecting and I just don’t know what I could have or should have done to overcome that. I’m sure there is something a more experienced teacher would have been able to do, and I’m sure I’ll learn those techniques eventually. But for what I had, I think I did ok. In fact, when the teacher that observed me told the other teacher who was in my class, the other teacher said, “oh what a nightmare!”… I just looked at her pitifully and said, “oh thank you!” I modified the games and activities as best I could, the students were participating, and I think I had the right material for the subject matter (comparative adjectives) and that my lesson plan
was good… it just isn’t a lesson (or lesson plan) that should be taught to beginners, which is basically what I ended up with. I was near tears at the end of my class, but now that I reflect a little, I’m okay with how I did… it was just a disaster and I just had to do crisis management as best as I could.
So then we got home and I was STARVING (as usual!). The lady, Yami, who takes care of these apartments (there’s only Yami’s, ours, and one more that doesn’t have a kitchen) said that she had some food for us. We were a little reluctant since we were so tired, but OH MY GOSH. That was SO good. It was rice, beans, salad, and something called aducados. I have NO idea how to spell that. She had to tell me the name of it 5 or 6 times throughout the night for me to be able to even remember how to say it. It was beef wrapped in a flaky, buttery, croissant-ish sort of bread and it was amazing. Mmm! There were only two aducados, but I could have eaten 10, they were SO good. And the rice and beans? Fabulous! And the salad was delicious!! I felt full for the first time in days - maybe it has something to do with eating more than one thing at a time? We only ever have just rice, or just eggs, or just potatoes and tomatoes… I guess those are the woes of cooking for yourself and trying to do it as cheaply as possible.
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jeff
non-member comment
Ouch!
That sucks, but at least you did your best to salvage the situation. Did you get the marker off the board? If it's a whiteboard just take one of the whiteboard markers and color over the permanent marker and it should dissolve the permanent marker and cling to it and then you can just wipe it off like normal. I used to draw on my whiteboard with sharpie all the time when I didn't want something erased and then I would just erase it with the whiteboard markers when I didn't want it anymore.