Wednesday
Well after the long weekend it was a struggle for both
teachers and students to get motivated with the students ‘forgetting’ to do
their homework in some classes but the majority had done so. My timetable is an
easy mix of secondary and upper primary classes.
In the upper primary classes I assist one of two local
teachers, Pablo or Juan Angel, and the patience that these two gentlemen have
is amazing as at times it seems like they are ‘herding cats’! The planning for
one of these lessons is completely different that that done for the secondary
classes as to achieve the simplest task a lot of thought has to go into it. I
don’t know if upper primary will ever be my forte but I will need the patience
of a saint to do so I think.
In the secondary classes I have been assisting and
teaching part lessons with my teacher mentor Maribel. She has a sense of humour
to match mine which can lead us to start laughing at something innocuous and
sometimes leave the secondary students baffled. At other times my wayward sense
of humour can cause me to start giggling during a serious moment in the lesson
much to student’s delight. I ought to curb this but what is life like without
some amusement?
Thursday
Normal service resumed (almost) in this short week with
the students working with as much enthusiasm as they could muster.
As part of my timetable I have several ‘reinforcement’
classes which can be anything from conversational classes with the local
teachers to practice their English or discussing methods of teaching to being
invited to speak or teach another class. Last week I was invited to speak about
the English Reformation and Henry VIII during a Religious Education class
(being an English/Irish catholic I was suitably qualified, obviously).
This week I was invited down to the Kindergarten and
Lower Primary to meet a class of 5 yr olds. I was given some idea of what their
level of English would be and I admit I was quite nervous about meeting them.
What a bunch of little darlings they are!!! I introduced myself and they
giggled uncontrollably at my poor pronunciation of their names. Next I got them
to perform basic movements (stand up, sit down, stand on one leg, turn around,
hold your nose, etc.). Next I got them to sing and perform the action song
‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees And Toes’ – they loved this! I followed this up with Word
Bingo in a 2x2 square using the vocabulary groups animals and then fruit. As
their level of English is restricted to speaking and listening at their age and
they are only just learning to read and write is Castellano (Spanish) we had to
resort to drawing animals and later fruits. That was a bit of an eye-opener as
some of the drawings made no sense to me but at least the kids knew what they
represented. This Word Bingo too was another success – I was on a roll! Finally
they sang to me the song ‘I Can Sing A Rainbow’ to which I then sang back to
them and they joined in (don’t worry Eurovision you’re quite safe, I won’t be
entering). Lastly the hour was up but they wouldn’t let me leave and mobbed me
like a rugby scrum that didn’t quite reach up to my waist. Quite amazing, I
look forward to seeing them again next week.
Friday
I, like most of my fellow placement teacher, were busy
preparing our formal lesson plans for our final observed lesson next week. Once
our teacher mentors had agreed what we would be teaching during our observed
lesson the planning was easy as it should take a maximum of a tenth of the
lesson time, e.g. 50 mins lesson = 5 mins planning. However, then it can take
an hour or two to type up the formal lesson plan – deep joy!
Today we said farewell to the three girls from Dublin who
had been here on a month’s exchange with the school attending 4th
year seniors’ classes.
One of my weekly reinforcement lessons is with a mix and
1st and 2nd year seniors where we practice various
vocabulary groups and grammar points using games. Once again Word Bingo is a
success as it was last week – word must have spread. Last week ‘I Went To
Market …” was a big hit so to keep things fresh I expanded the vocabulary
groups for Word Bingo from animals and fruit to numbers (1-20) and then feeling
really ambitious I tried regular verbs! A little too ambitious as it turned out
as all everyone could think of was irregular verbs. So to round things off with
I introduced Buzz using multiples of three (x3) and four (x4). Again, this went
down very well.
Lastly, the school posted some photos of me teaching in
various classes with the Secondary students and a (very) short video of me
singing ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees And Toes’ with the Kindergarten and Lower
Primary. This was quite unexpected that they would mention me on their Facebook site
so it is a very nice compliment by the school.
And now the last weekend L
Great to have this record of your teaching, Stephen!
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