I will be taking pictures with the students in my different classes next week so that you can see them (the are more than willing to take pictures, especially when it involves placing them in the internet in any way).
For my monday, wed., fri. basic level class the students come for two hours, from 3 to 5. They are all in middle school, high school or university, and they come to the class after they get out of a long day in school. Planning and teaching for the basic level (and the other elementary class i have) has been the most difficult for me. Two hours of English with no breaks is a lot for beginning students. To prevent them from feeling overloaded, I stick to one topic for the day (my primary organizing category for this class is topics). I sort of repeat and reintroduce the topic from the previous lesson so that we don't just rush through something once and never revisit it.
For example, on wednesday we did a lesson on the topic "what is your daily routine?" First, I asked the students to share the vocabulary they knew related to daily activities - this helped me to see their prior knowledge and it helped them get into the days topic. Then, as a sort of advance organizer, I passed out a chart with two columns. one column had some words related to daily routine (some of which the students already knew) and the other column was blank so the students could write the definition or translation. Next, students got with a partner and completed an interview "Tell me what your daily routine is." Overall, I was really pleased that the students participated and asked their partner questions and then switched. Then, we moved onto "Guess the person's daily routine." I passed out one picture of a person to each pair of students. The pictures were of many types of people: rock stars, footballers, the prime minister, a business woman, a farmer, and so on. Students had to talk together and write out one version of the daily routine of the person in the picture - again I was really pleased with the students' participation. Everything I described so far took about an hour. Then for the next class we built upon the general daily routine by talking about the topic "things we do at work and school everyday." This is my way of trying to build on topics and keep things relevant. I want students to see that there is a reasoning behind why i select and order class topics. This is my general hope. I just wanted to share some details of what I have been doing with this one particular class, which is by far the most difficult and energy-consuming to teach. Ideas and comments about this would be great.
I have three other classes too, but I will share what I do one class at a time. I think this coming week I'll write about my favorite class, intermediate. In case you are curious about the internship hours here they are M,W,F 3-5 and 730:930 (I plan at 12 and 5) and Tues., Thrs, from 530-730 and 730-930. The four hours straight with no break is actually a killer for me, so I'm glad its only two days a week. Teaching from 530 until 930 means all my planning must be done for both classes and it takes me a while. This leads to a major weakness of mine, which is that I am not fast at planning - I feel so inefficient. (notice the lack of travel time between classes - interesting). Honestly, I feel that I am working at maximum capacity. I have been scouring vietnam and the internet for authentic materials that I can relate to my classes and students' levels, and I have been planning from scratch since there is no existing curriculum/syllabus. I enjoy the challenge, but I wish I had more energy and time to have been able to create a curriculum outline for each course BEFORE I started teaching, but I had no time. The basic class was given to me with two hours notice (that was a little scary). So, I am sort of catching up and trying to tie everything together, make it meaningful and all that good stuff. Essentially, I have started drawing up my curriculum outlines AFTER I have started teaching, which I know isn't right (peter would be disappointed I think). I think that the total and rapid immersion I got teaching here was rooted in the idea that there is no need to pre-plan and form clear goals for a particular course. So privately I am holding on to my ways and sticking to what I think i right, even if things don't unfold in the order that we have been taught they should. I think one of the lessons I have learned in this short time is that sometimes, things are out of our (teachers) control, and I think we have to adapt and find a way to apply the lessons we are learning at miis even when it feels impossible.
Well, with this small lesson, I will end for now. Your comments are welcome (and they make my day!).
Hope you all are well :P
nat
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