Day 12

Oh boy.. today was such a long day.

Yesterday I was telling you about the opportunity I had to observe the English test. Today I had the opportunity to observe a Chinese test. Since I do not speak Chinese, I was unable to help other than redirecting students' attention. It was interesting to see the different testing styles between the two teachers; the teacher who administered the test yesterday was the home room teacher and followed the time exactly whereas the teacher today felt bad that the students had to do so much work in such a little amount of time so she let them stay and work during their 10 minute break if they wanted to. During the Chinese lesson, one of the students was playing with his ruler again (this has been an on going problem) and I took it away from him and told him if he behaves in the next class he may have it back and if not its mine until the end of the day. The next class came and he did not behave so I told him at 4pm he will get it back. His reaction was really interesting; he said but you're not Ms. Sam. I told him, you're right, I'm not; I'm Ms. Maddy and I'm in charge too. Surprisingly he did not fight that he just nodded like I just told him 3 + 2=5.

After the Chinese class, the students went to PE and I had planning time which was good for me to work on my reflective essay. I was going to try and finish it tonight but I am way to tired to think about doing work. Just about everything I need to do for tomorrows lesson is ready. In tomorrows lesson I am reading The Important Book  (thank you mommy!) as a read aloud. However, since my students have never had a read aloud with a real book and with them sitting on the floor before, I will have to teach them how to come to the floor and how to behave during a read aloud before I start reading. While I'm reading the book I will teach my students what important means by first making a guess what it means, then having the students think about what it means, then talking about what it means, and then having the students tell me what it means. After I'm done reading the story I will send the students back to their desks and have them create their own important page, but, since they have been focusing on fruit lately I will have them choose a fruit and write about it. On the important pages I have created, it has one line that says "the important thing about_________ is ______________. Three important things about ______ are: 1.... 2....3.... but the most important thing about________ is _____________." I'm going to print the words on colored paper tomorrow morning and then hopefully turn it into a teacher made big book. I'm expecting to not get through all of this tomorrow since I only have a twenty-five segment to work with and that's fine. I can always come back to it next week.

Later on in the day I got to observe the computer class. This was so neat! There is a designated computer teacher who is teaching the students which fingers reach to what keys and then giving them laptops to practice on in the classroom. In addition to practicing on laptops, the students have an educational typing video game they play on the laptops. I thought this was such a good idea, especially with students so young!

When the day was finally over, the other students teacher, Dr. Ballou, and myself went to Pizza Hut to celebrate Dr. Ballou's last night in town until he comes back in May. The pizza here is so much better than the pizza back home! There is one kind of pizza that is amazing! It has an herb crust, 1000 Island dressing, Roma tomatoes, cucumbers, cream cheese and Parmesan cheese toppings. It was so good! A very satisfying way to end the evening.

I am really excited for my lesson tomorrow. I have no idea how my students are going to respond, but I think that's the point. This is a completely new activity for them and strategy for the teachers; hopefully all of us will learn something from it! I will let you know how it goes!