Wow what an adventure! There is really no better training for this stuff then just getting out and doing it! All day Wednesday we had training meetings to get ready for our first day of classes on Thursday. I was also given my teaching schedule. I teach primary classes from 3-5 mon-thurs and ELE classes on fridays from 8am to 1:40.
Thursday morning I woke up bright and early, my lesson plan in hand, thinking I was ready and prepared and it was going to go great. I was a little nervous, but fairly confident. Then...... reality set in. At 2:50 we all met by the chinese teacher's classrooms. There's a big statue there in the middle of the courtyard. As the kids began to line up we all soon realized that we were going to have a lot more kids than originally expected. A typical ILP class size is about 8 children. Ours ended up being ten and a couple teachers had 11 or 12. However, i must say that the kids were absolutely adorable...... most of the time :). As I led my kids to our classrooms two of the girls walking next to me said "Teacher, teacher! What is your name?" after my response they exclaimes, "Teacher Lorilei, your hair is so beautiful!" and proceeded to talk about all the different colors they saw in my hair. It was the cutest thing!
At the start of all our classes we have "Opening", where all the students in the classes on our floor stand together in one room and we talk about the day of the week and the weather and the time and we sing a song. We're supposed to have lines for all the kids to stand on in their classes, but due to some miscommunication we didn't have enough lines which made for a very hectic start. Getting everything going took more time then it should have so we were running very late on our schedule. We split into our separate classes and i led my kids to my room (which i had decorated earlier that day). I had a line on the floor with different color fish for them each to line up on while they waited for me to seat them. For the first few weeks we're here i'll be teaching the drama class (yipee!!! :D). We have three-teacher rotations where we all teach a different subject to encompass the English teaching we do.
The kids in my rotation have been in the program for a few years, but as I started my lesson i quickly learned just how smart they are. Most of them know a good deal of english and many of them know how to work the system very well. Also, with me being a new teacher, they tried "testing" me, to see how well I'd really enforce the rules. So as I switched between the three groups of kids in my rotation, most of class time was spent getting the kids into the routine. Although i did get a few kids to give me really good monkey impressions (which is what my lesson was about). I also learned all their names and took pictures of them to help me remember.
It was crazy and hectic, and at one point I didn't know what I got myself into, but I gotta say, I really do love these kids already. They are adorable and sweet, and although a bit manipulative at times, I think it will be a fun semester. Plus now that I've actually taught a class, I feel like I know more about how to prepare for these kids. I can't wait to teach again on monday and hopefully things will run much smoother :)
Zaijian!
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