Day 26

Hello!
Sorry I skipped Wednesday.. I cannot remember what I did but I'm fairly positive I did not teach that day so you didn't miss much. Anyway, here is Thursday.

Today I led my first literacy lunch. About a week ago I went to the director and talked to her about my idea to lead a literacy night with the students and their parents so they could all learn some fun and simple at-home literacy enhancing games. However, she and the staff decided that it would be best to do this during the students' hour and a half lunch because the parents usually work late and have babysitters pick the students up from school. I wasn't picky when the literacy games happened so I thought that was fine. I was hoping to interact with the parents and share some games with them, but maybe that can happen at a different event.

At 12:45 I went to the lunch room, or the canteen, and pulled the fifteen students who were assigned to come play literacy games with me. I had two of the student teachers helping out, so that was really nice since I had no idea how this was going to go. Since all the other students were taking their rest time, I was given an empty room on the top floor that no one uses. Before I went downstairs to pick my kids up, I organized everything and prepared for them. I had different games spread out over 4 hexagonal tables and one rectangular table. I brought phonemic BINGO, sight word memory, word strips to write their name in English and Chinese, creating a grocery list, and drawing a picture and writing a story about it. When the students saw that this was supposed to be fun, they started to relax. As they entered the room I told students to sit down at any table and wait for directions. At that point the students dispersed around only three of the hexagonal tables so each of the student teachers somewhat took over the table they were next to. Since I hadn't formally planned exactly what was going to happen, we all just let the students choose which literacy activity they wanted to participate in. There were a few boys that I was playing what who really got into the Phonemic BINGO and sight word memory. It was really fun to watch them play. That went until 1:15 when we put the room back and headed back to our respective classrooms.

Immediately following the literacy lunch, I taught my class' phonics and handwriting lesson alone. My cooperating teacher had forgot to run an errand for our Fruit Day that afternoon and was heading to the store with another teacher so I was in charge of the lesson, which I was totally open to. However, once I came back from my literacy lunch all the students have their ten minute break and getting them to sit down after that is nearly impossible. It seems to me that having their break in the classroom does not help them mentally differentiate where they can be rowdy and where they should be quiet. I spent about 5 minutes just trying to get my students to listen and sit in their seats. I had students saying the F word and shaking their booty at other students, completely inappropriate. However, I did the best I could to manage them. I was able to get them to sit down and stay quiet, not silent, but decently quiet. It just took some time. Then I had to start the lesson since we only had 15 minutes left (the two lessons directly after lunch are two 20 minute lessons with no break in between). The way the phonics and handwriting lesson is taught is by focusing on a specific letter in their handwriting book and feeling in their throat how it is different from other sounds. In this lesson I had students feel how F was different from V and had them feel their necks as they said it. After they said each sound I told them to start writing their sentences in their book which has F alliterations. Once they finish that they are supposed to copy them into another book. Unfortunately many of my students did not get to this part because they were not listening and kept getting off task. When one of my co-teachers came in for the second twenty minute lesson, I told him I could not help teach it because I needed to recompose myself. We had just planned a review game for their test next week and I needed to get my head on straight before I could go back in and teach. I was really unhappy with how my lesson went and how my students walked all over me. When I was teaching, the assistant director was watching and even pulled some students out. When I returned to class I apologized profusely because I felt like I should have had better control of the class and he then apologized for how poorly behaved the students were. As I re-entered my class, I worked on sorting the two books my students were supposed to finish during my class. For the students who did not finish their work, I gave it back to them and assigned it as homework. Many of them were shocked at this as they have never gotten homework in this particular class before. Mind you they do receive homework! They get homework in about 5 different subjects a night.
After my class finished the review, my co-teacher and I went back to the office and I told my cooperating teacher that I had given their work as homework since they did not finish it and she appreciated that.

It's really hard for me to not take what happens in the class personally because it's my class for the next three months; they are my responsibility. I guess you never stop trying new techniques and strategies until you find one (or five) that work!

After the second to last period, all the P1 classes went down to the canteen (lunch room) for their fruit day. They have recently been learning about fruits in their English classes and this was their final activity. Every student brought a bag of fruit with them and all of the teacher worked to prepare it. There were apples, bananas, dragon fruits, grapes, and oranges. They were all mixed up with Miracle Whip which was not what I was expecting. When I was helping to peel the apples, I was having a very difficult time using the peeler they had since it was different from what I have used at home. I tried many times but still had no success. As I was struggling to get the hang of this, the doctor (instead of a nurse they have a female doctor) watched what I was doing and then showed me the correct way and then let me try again. Even after she had showed me how to peel it correctly I was still having trouble. Since she saw this she took the peeler from me, put it in my hand, and then put her hand over mine and helped me peel the apple. She told me how I should feel it and the angle the peeler should come in contact with the apple. After this I was finally able to peel the apple by myself!

This goes to show that there is not one way to teach students, everyone learns differently. The doctor realized that and instead of peeling the apple for me, she helped me learn by teaching me in a way that made sense to me. To that I was greatly appreciative.