Day 6

Now that student teaching has officially begun I feel like I am really in control of what happens from here on out. On Friday when I was in the classroom I had the opportunity to observe the whole day. My students did not have a specialist that day so I was with them all day which was a great learning experience for me. Instead of simply observing on the sidelines, I started to participate by walking around and helping students, managing poor behavior, and answering questions. This was a little more difficult to do during the Chinese lessons but I was able to help out by making sure the students were on the right page in their work books.

During one of their English lessons, there was a student who was playing with his ruler by hitting it on the desk and not showing good listening behavior. To manage this I went up to the student and quietly said I would like you to either put the ruler away or give it to me. He said he did not want to give it to me so he put it away and I said that was fine. However, a few minutes later, he had it out again banging on the desk. Since I had already told him his choices, I went up to him and took his ruler away and said he may have it back at the end of the lesson and that he needs to pay attention. When the lesson was over I went up to the student and sat next to him. I gave him his ruler back and told him in the future I want him to show good listening behavior by keeping his things in his desk and to be respectful to the teacher. He said he understood and apologized to the teacher for not listening.

Later in the day the homeroom teacher handed back the students homework from the night before and told them that even though the directions had instructed students to color, majority of the class had not. She gave them the period to finish their work and then start on that nights homework. While students were working, she went around and checked to make sure the syntax was correct in each sentence because the work was going to be displayed on Sunday at the "Open Day". Open Day is similar to Open House where parents and families come to visit the school.

At the end of the school day, a fellow central student and I went on a walk around the old Portugese part of town and visited the casinos. They are Huge!! So beautiful! I was amazed. We stopped in a restraunt called Spice World to have dinner and that was amazing. I had lamb and was very pleased. On our way back we went by some old churches which were very beautiful. We ended up walking around for about 4 hours.

By the time I finally fingot home my eyes was so heavy! I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. It was a lot of fun to go exploring around the community I will be living in for the next few months.