Teaching

---

Finally, the reason I am on this trip in the first place has arrived- teaching and observing.

Yesterday I observed a TUD (my Dresden university) class. I was supposed to observe two, but the teacher for the second class was sick and there wasn't a class for us, but the first one we went to was actually really neat and I really enjoyed being a part of it. It was International Negotiations, and the students were all very high level English speakers. We got to see them doing a role-play of a business negotiation and meeting between a German company that made cranes and an Italian company looking to purchase some and make up a contract. At first we weren't sure what the professor wanted us to do, but once he told us he wanted more critical feedback from us, we started going through and telling them grammatical and lexical mistakes or things they could change in order to use the language better, and I feel like not only thought we were doing a good job, but really liked my suggestions- he even wrote one of them on the board, so I felt like I was doing something right.

The students were very cool and very eager and interested in improving and learning, so they were a real joy to work with, even for the short time we were there.

Since my second class was canceled, I came back to work on my lesson plan a bit, and then went up to hang out with my girls. Who are amazing and wonderful and I love them so much. <333 Oh my god, best ladies to ever be on a trip like this with.

Today was the first day that I had to teach on my own, however, and I was so nervous the whole day. Because we are basically getting thrown into this thing with NO books, NO materials, and NO real information, so we are making up lessons completely from scratch without even meeting the students. That's HARD. I only feel really solid doing lesson plans and stuff after spending a week or so with my students and feeling them out, so I can cater things to them, but this is just... anyway, knowing Dr. G was going to be observing was so nerve-wracking. He's just like this ESL god or something and he's the head of my program and you know, he's got so much weight and leverage in the ESL world and I'm just so nervous about making a good impression on him. Not to mention I had Anna & Vicky, who were teaching after us, watching, AND 3 other assistants that I had to incorporate into the lesson who were also watching. THAT IS SO MANY PEOPLE SUDDENLY WATCHING ME TEACH omg I can't even explain how nervous I was.

We knew it was a long trip out there, and we knew our bus left at 4:43 on the dot from this station we had to take the tram to. We met at 4:10 to head over to the tram thinking we were going to have a ton of time- all 7 of us coming from the dorm. Well, we ended up having to wait 10 minutes for the tram and THEN the one we were on kept making all these stops, and Brittany, who wasn't going tonight but was leading us to where we needed to catch our bus, was like "omg, we're going to miss the bus, why is this train taking so long?" It's supposed to take like 15 minutes to make this trip, and I think it took us about 22 or 23. That's NOT okay when you are cutting it so close.

We finally get to the stop and we get off and then we had to WAIT TO CROSS THE STREET as our bus is RIGHT ACROSS THERE and we are all panicking because THERE IS NO OTHER BUS and if we miss this, we are seriously SOL and Dr. G would be so mad. So Ben yells at Dennis to just SPRINT, and he and Joe basically make this mad dash across the station and luckily the bus driver saw us all running towards him and waited, so we managed to get on. Lesson learned: leaving like 20 minutes BEFORE we left today from now on, yeesh. :x

Anyway, the bus takes us into this tiny village outside Dresden where we are doing our community classes, to a village that Dr. G grew up in that he says has about 800 people living in it. It was so cool, because it really looked like I always imagined that a village in rural Europe would look. As we're on the bus, this random man comes over and asks, "Are you from Ohio? Dr. Gommlich is waiting back there for you, at the last stop" and we are all just like OMG WTF BBQ ARE YOU SERIOUS and get off and have to walk back a stop to where Dr. G was, so it was an adventure all around.

We sat outside because we were half an hour early (which we had to be, given the bus schedule) and Dr. G got us some pastries and mostly I just sat and tried not to throw up all over my nice shoes. I wore a cute outfit, with my new skirt, just to make sure I felt at my best. But still, going in blind like this... it was intense.

Finally, he took us up to the room we are teaching in, which is the second floor of a restaurant in the village. It's basically set up in two long tables and a projector/white board at the front. I made sure that I greeted all my students who came in because Jennifer and I went first.

It was....tough. I mean, having 7 people observing my teaching when I went in with so little to guide me in the right direction PLUS one of them being this department head whom I want so badly to impress? I was so nervous. I was basically so nervous I completely forgot to write words down on the board, but I think that the lesson went okay despite that? They talked and they are AWESOME, my students are just seriously amazing, they are so interesting and I want to sit and talk to all of them just to hear their life stories, but they did awesome group work and I think it went okay. To be honest, I'm kind of blanking on what I actually did in that hour and a half, which means man, I was really scared hahaha.

Then Anna and Vicky taught their lesson to the next group, and I assisted, where I met even more cool people and it was a lot less pressure on me. Afterwards we got our feedback in the car- I was glad it was just us girls in the car when he did it, because if he'd given me the criticism in front of the guys, I probably would have just started crying. I don't handle constructive criticism well. :/ I guess it went okay and I didn't do anything too terrible, but hearing things I did well would have been nice in addition to the things I did wrong.

He takes us back to where we'll get the tram back, and literally AS WE ARE WALKING UP TO IT, it pulls away and we are all like *@(*#%#$($(@@ !!!! So another one comes and we think we are saved, and we get on it, and then it sits there for 20 minutes while we are the only passengers. It was so bizarre. We just had the worst luck with transportation today. It's a half hour ride back, so I put my ipod on while we were driving and tried to sort of find myself again after everything. Too much adrenaline and nerves.

Luckily, he said we can use our lesson plan for Monday with the other group, and that cuts down on another lesson plan we need to make, so that's awesome! One less thing to stress over. Dr. G said he'd never seen me so nervous before. Um, yeah. Look at what I just had to do. I've never had ONE person observe my teaching, let alone SEVEN, one of them being HIM. akjsfkjdjfas idk.

I guess I'll just incorporate what he said to do and try to be better next week!

That's it for me tonight. It's kind of late and I'm just kind of exhausted from all this, and I have to go observe another TUD class tomorrow, so I'm taking it easy for the rest of tonight. But there are some pictures from our trip out to the village, so that's something! 😊

---

Photos

may 18, 2011 002
On our way on the bus

may 18, 2011 003
Rural Germany

may 18, 2011 004
More rural Germany

may 18, 2011 006
Right outside the restaurant where we teach

may 18, 2011 007
The view from the benches outside the restaurant

may 18, 2011 009
Outside the restaurant again

may 18, 2011 010
Twilight