Happy St. Patricks Day!
After exploring Hong Kong until the wee hours of the morning, I did not roll out of bed until close to noon. Once I got up my roommate and I just stayed in our jammies and watched a movie on TV. When I finally decided to motivate I took a shower, did my laundry, and cleaned my room a little bit.
Later that afternoon we planning on going to a piano concert that one of the other student teachers had discovered. I thought the concert started at 6:30, my roommate thought it started at 8, but it actually started at 4pm.. oops! Guess we missed that one. Probably a good thing we didn't go since we were so exhausted. My roommate and I decided to lay low and have a nice St. Pattys Day celebration of pizza, beers, and milkshakes with coco, baileys, and ice cream. We invited the boys to join us but I think they had other plans since they never made over. After the movie was over we both crashed and went to bed at about 10:30. It was nice having a relaxing day and not really doing much.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Day 27
This week my weekend started early because we all needed to go to Hong Kong to get our passports stamped.
We got to Hong Kong by taking the casino shuttle to the Taipa ferry terminal and then bought ferry tickets to Hong Kong. The tickets were only about $140 MOP which isn't that bad. The entire ferry ride took an hour which was really nice. When we arrived in Hong Kong it was 1pm and we decided to figure out how to get to one of the male student teachers cousins. We took the subway to get there which was really fun and then walked a short ways. Once we met up with his cousin she showed us to a traditional dim sum restaurant. Unfortunately she did not have time to stay and eat with us so we ate lunch and made plans to meet up with her after she got off work. Dim sum was so good! I think we had about 8 dishes to share between the four of us. It was really good. One of my favorites was a steamed bun with pork and broth inside. We had three orders of those alone haha. Delicious! After lunch we started to make our way to the Hong Kong park, however, as we were walking we ran into a group of college students who were conducting a survey and asked each of us some questions. I thought it was a lot of and they were able to give us directions to the park which was great. This park is huge.. As American when we think of park we normally think of a decent sized grassy area with some play equipment, benches, and water fountains. Well this park was huge and absolutely beautiful. The first place we went to in the park was a Tea Ware Museum. This displayed the progression of tea sets through various dynasties. It was really fascinating to read why they had changes and the symbolism behind the colors in some of the tea pots. In addition to tea ware, this museum also show cased Chinese seal stamps. These are stamps that have calligraphy carved into the bottom and then that is pressed into ink so it can be stamped on paper. Some of these were very large and so intricate. I can't imagine how long it would take to make one. Once we finished looking around, we went to another tea ware museum around the corner. There was a gift shop there so I explored and looked at some of the tea pots. I really wanted to buy one and bring it home but I was worried it may break.
The next place we went to was the plant conservatory. This was next to an Olympic stage. Not really sure what it was for because it was pretty small but it had the Olympic rings. In the plant conservatory we went through different rooms that had a collection of plants from different climates around the world. It was to go from dry and arid to wet and humid. Once we left the conservatory, we wanted to go to the building in the Dark Knight where batman jumps off it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uI9tBS_1C0) but decided we didn't have enough time as it would take us twenty minutes to get there and we were meeting with the other student teachers cousin in forty minutes. We will have to go next time! On our way meeting up with his cousin, we walked by a cathedral that was really lovely. I'm not sure what religion it was but the stained glass windows were so pretty! We stayed for a few minutes and listened to the music and then headed on our way. When we got to the building in which his cousin worked, I was thrilled to find a Starbucks. They served red velvet cake! I was very happy. Before we were allowed to go up the 47 floors to where she worked, we had to screen our bags and go through a security check and then were given a visitors pass. When we finally met up with her, we headed back down to the bottom floor and decided on a place to have dinner. We ended up going to a food court place that had burgers and pasta! I found a grill that had a pesto and salmon sandwich only their grill wasn't working so I couldn't get it :(. Instead I got a burger and a FRESH cucumber salad. I was super excited to have fresh vegetables, that is one thing we are not getting here.
After dinner we said headed bought tickets for the tram and headed up the peak. This is a lookout that is taller than all of Hong Kong. It was so cool. The tram ride was about a 60 degree incline.. eek! Once we got to the top we were able to go outside and see the city. Unfortunately the fog was starting to roll in so we weren't able to see that much for too long. As we waited in line to head back down, we talked about how this was similar to a ride at Disney Land. We waited in line for forty minutes! After we got the bottom it took us 5 hours to get home. We tried to take a different ferry than the one we rode over on but there was no-one selling tickets so we had to take a cab to the other ferry terminal which was a lot further away than we though. Once we were there we encountered a man who was being extremely rude. We were all waiting in line buy our tickets and this man had already cut in front of someone and then kept hitting my roommate with his bag and tried to cut in front of her. She and the other male student teacher called him out on it and said he was being rude and that she was there before he was and he swore at her in response. I think we were all ready to go home by that point. It had been a very fun but very long day and we were tired. When we got to shore, we had to figure out how to get home since we were in Macau not Taipa. I thought the casino shuttles would be there to pick us up but they were not so we had to take a cab again. It took a while to explain to our driver where wanted to go but he got us to the casino which is fine, its only a five minute walk from our apartment anyway.
We ended up getting home at 3:45 and probably walked near 6 or 7 miles. It was such a fun day but my bed never felt better!
We got to Hong Kong by taking the casino shuttle to the Taipa ferry terminal and then bought ferry tickets to Hong Kong. The tickets were only about $140 MOP which isn't that bad. The entire ferry ride took an hour which was really nice. When we arrived in Hong Kong it was 1pm and we decided to figure out how to get to one of the male student teachers cousins. We took the subway to get there which was really fun and then walked a short ways. Once we met up with his cousin she showed us to a traditional dim sum restaurant. Unfortunately she did not have time to stay and eat with us so we ate lunch and made plans to meet up with her after she got off work. Dim sum was so good! I think we had about 8 dishes to share between the four of us. It was really good. One of my favorites was a steamed bun with pork and broth inside. We had three orders of those alone haha. Delicious! After lunch we started to make our way to the Hong Kong park, however, as we were walking we ran into a group of college students who were conducting a survey and asked each of us some questions. I thought it was a lot of and they were able to give us directions to the park which was great. This park is huge.. As American when we think of park we normally think of a decent sized grassy area with some play equipment, benches, and water fountains. Well this park was huge and absolutely beautiful. The first place we went to in the park was a Tea Ware Museum. This displayed the progression of tea sets through various dynasties. It was really fascinating to read why they had changes and the symbolism behind the colors in some of the tea pots. In addition to tea ware, this museum also show cased Chinese seal stamps. These are stamps that have calligraphy carved into the bottom and then that is pressed into ink so it can be stamped on paper. Some of these were very large and so intricate. I can't imagine how long it would take to make one. Once we finished looking around, we went to another tea ware museum around the corner. There was a gift shop there so I explored and looked at some of the tea pots. I really wanted to buy one and bring it home but I was worried it may break.
The next place we went to was the plant conservatory. This was next to an Olympic stage. Not really sure what it was for because it was pretty small but it had the Olympic rings. In the plant conservatory we went through different rooms that had a collection of plants from different climates around the world. It was to go from dry and arid to wet and humid. Once we left the conservatory, we wanted to go to the building in the Dark Knight where batman jumps off it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uI9tBS_1C0) but decided we didn't have enough time as it would take us twenty minutes to get there and we were meeting with the other student teachers cousin in forty minutes. We will have to go next time! On our way meeting up with his cousin, we walked by a cathedral that was really lovely. I'm not sure what religion it was but the stained glass windows were so pretty! We stayed for a few minutes and listened to the music and then headed on our way. When we got to the building in which his cousin worked, I was thrilled to find a Starbucks. They served red velvet cake! I was very happy. Before we were allowed to go up the 47 floors to where she worked, we had to screen our bags and go through a security check and then were given a visitors pass. When we finally met up with her, we headed back down to the bottom floor and decided on a place to have dinner. We ended up going to a food court place that had burgers and pasta! I found a grill that had a pesto and salmon sandwich only their grill wasn't working so I couldn't get it :(. Instead I got a burger and a FRESH cucumber salad. I was super excited to have fresh vegetables, that is one thing we are not getting here.
After dinner we said headed bought tickets for the tram and headed up the peak. This is a lookout that is taller than all of Hong Kong. It was so cool. The tram ride was about a 60 degree incline.. eek! Once we got to the top we were able to go outside and see the city. Unfortunately the fog was starting to roll in so we weren't able to see that much for too long. As we waited in line to head back down, we talked about how this was similar to a ride at Disney Land. We waited in line for forty minutes! After we got the bottom it took us 5 hours to get home. We tried to take a different ferry than the one we rode over on but there was no-one selling tickets so we had to take a cab to the other ferry terminal which was a lot further away than we though. Once we were there we encountered a man who was being extremely rude. We were all waiting in line buy our tickets and this man had already cut in front of someone and then kept hitting my roommate with his bag and tried to cut in front of her. She and the other male student teacher called him out on it and said he was being rude and that she was there before he was and he swore at her in response. I think we were all ready to go home by that point. It had been a very fun but very long day and we were tired. When we got to shore, we had to figure out how to get home since we were in Macau not Taipa. I thought the casino shuttles would be there to pick us up but they were not so we had to take a cab again. It took a while to explain to our driver where wanted to go but he got us to the casino which is fine, its only a five minute walk from our apartment anyway.
We ended up getting home at 3:45 and probably walked near 6 or 7 miles. It was such a fun day but my bed never felt better!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
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.
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.
Day 24
Tuesday
Today I made my classroom expectations clear. I started the day by writing my rules on a poster I created while my students sorted their homework. When I finished writing the rules, I passed out rule sheet for each of my students to copy the rules down on to. This way they would always be able to refer back to them. After my students wrote down the first 4 rules, I had them read each rule aloud with me and help me to understand what they mean. The first rule was "Be NICE all the time". One of my students raised his hand and said it means to always be good, don't be mean. That was exactly what I was looking for. After he explained what this rule meant to him, I asked the class if pushing my friend would be nice or if helping my friend would be nice. They said helping would be nice. Since it seemed like everyone understood the first rule, I moved on to the second which was "RAISE your hand". I had the class show me what this looks like and everyone raised their hand in the air. I asked them if its okay to yell out or if its ok to raise my hand. The class said it is ok to raise your hand. I explained that if everyone yells out at the same time its too loud so we all need to raise our hands. To support that, I went into the third rule "Talk with an INSIDE VOICE". The concept of inside/outside voices is very foreign to these students. They have never heard it before and are allowed to yell in class. I demonstrated the difference of inside and outside voices by yelling and then talking quietly and asking my students which sounded better. They said the the quieter voice was better. I then called on a student to explain what quieter voices are better and this student said that if everyone yells it will get too loud. I said she was exactly right and went on to the fourth rule, "LISTEN to the teacher". For this rule I explained that no matter which teacher is leading the lesson, they must always listen to that person. I asked them who they should be listening to now and they pointed to me and said "Ms. Maddy". After we discussed that rule I asked them to think what they think of one more rule that they would like to make for their class. After my students thought about it, one little girl raised her hand and said the last rule should be "do not run". I asked the class to raise their hand if they would also like this to be the last rule. Everyones hand was in the air. Since they had decided what the last rule was I wrote it on the poster and had them copy it and write their name on the bottom of the paper where it says they will always follow the rules. After they wrote their names one of my students asked me why my name wasn't on the poster. I asked the class if they would like me to write my name and everyone said yes! So I signed my name and explained that now everyone in this room-me included- must follow the rules all the time. After I signed it I had students come up and sign it as well.
Throughout the day I continued to refer back to the rules and remind students that everyone is held accountable to them. When a student would break the rule, I would have him/her walk up to the poster with me and tell which rule was broken. I'm hoping that the rules will form a sort of consistency with my students.
After I taught my rules, I led another lesson following The Important Book. In this lesson I reviewed what important means and gave examples of various things that are important to me. When I opened the lesson I had students share with me what they remember about the word important and what is important to them. After that I pulled out different items that I brought with me in my bag and we discussed how each item was important. While we were doing this, I pointed back to the word strip I had created of "important" on the chalkboard. After we discussed how the different items I brought were important, I held up the pictures of fruit I brought in and for each picture had the class tell me what it was. Since we have tried the worksheet a few times now with no success, I thought I would try again from a different approach. This time I put the worksheet under the document camera so it was visible to the whole class. As I went through the worksheet, I explained what should be written on each line. After I passed out their worksheet and walked around monitoring their work, I realized they were not ready for it. Almost everyone was still making mistakes with how to write the worksheet. Even though my students weren't successful with the worksheet I still feel the lesson was successful; they were able to talk with me about what important means and describe how various items are important. I think I'm approaching this lesson way differently than anyone else would because instead of choosing a camera, phone, or laptop as important items, I chose every day items and had my students seek out the importance in each. For example, some of the items I brought into this lesson were a water bottle, tissues, a pencil, and a chair. I want my students to be able to understand what important means and be able to identify what is important about any given object.
I think with time they will be able to do that more easily instead of being prompted by me.
Today I made my classroom expectations clear. I started the day by writing my rules on a poster I created while my students sorted their homework. When I finished writing the rules, I passed out rule sheet for each of my students to copy the rules down on to. This way they would always be able to refer back to them. After my students wrote down the first 4 rules, I had them read each rule aloud with me and help me to understand what they mean. The first rule was "Be NICE all the time". One of my students raised his hand and said it means to always be good, don't be mean. That was exactly what I was looking for. After he explained what this rule meant to him, I asked the class if pushing my friend would be nice or if helping my friend would be nice. They said helping would be nice. Since it seemed like everyone understood the first rule, I moved on to the second which was "RAISE your hand". I had the class show me what this looks like and everyone raised their hand in the air. I asked them if its okay to yell out or if its ok to raise my hand. The class said it is ok to raise your hand. I explained that if everyone yells out at the same time its too loud so we all need to raise our hands. To support that, I went into the third rule "Talk with an INSIDE VOICE". The concept of inside/outside voices is very foreign to these students. They have never heard it before and are allowed to yell in class. I demonstrated the difference of inside and outside voices by yelling and then talking quietly and asking my students which sounded better. They said the the quieter voice was better. I then called on a student to explain what quieter voices are better and this student said that if everyone yells it will get too loud. I said she was exactly right and went on to the fourth rule, "LISTEN to the teacher". For this rule I explained that no matter which teacher is leading the lesson, they must always listen to that person. I asked them who they should be listening to now and they pointed to me and said "Ms. Maddy". After we discussed that rule I asked them to think what they think of one more rule that they would like to make for their class. After my students thought about it, one little girl raised her hand and said the last rule should be "do not run". I asked the class to raise their hand if they would also like this to be the last rule. Everyones hand was in the air. Since they had decided what the last rule was I wrote it on the poster and had them copy it and write their name on the bottom of the paper where it says they will always follow the rules. After they wrote their names one of my students asked me why my name wasn't on the poster. I asked the class if they would like me to write my name and everyone said yes! So I signed my name and explained that now everyone in this room-me included- must follow the rules all the time. After I signed it I had students come up and sign it as well.
Throughout the day I continued to refer back to the rules and remind students that everyone is held accountable to them. When a student would break the rule, I would have him/her walk up to the poster with me and tell which rule was broken. I'm hoping that the rules will form a sort of consistency with my students.
After I taught my rules, I led another lesson following The Important Book. In this lesson I reviewed what important means and gave examples of various things that are important to me. When I opened the lesson I had students share with me what they remember about the word important and what is important to them. After that I pulled out different items that I brought with me in my bag and we discussed how each item was important. While we were doing this, I pointed back to the word strip I had created of "important" on the chalkboard. After we discussed how the different items I brought were important, I held up the pictures of fruit I brought in and for each picture had the class tell me what it was. Since we have tried the worksheet a few times now with no success, I thought I would try again from a different approach. This time I put the worksheet under the document camera so it was visible to the whole class. As I went through the worksheet, I explained what should be written on each line. After I passed out their worksheet and walked around monitoring their work, I realized they were not ready for it. Almost everyone was still making mistakes with how to write the worksheet. Even though my students weren't successful with the worksheet I still feel the lesson was successful; they were able to talk with me about what important means and describe how various items are important. I think I'm approaching this lesson way differently than anyone else would because instead of choosing a camera, phone, or laptop as important items, I chose every day items and had my students seek out the importance in each. For example, some of the items I brought into this lesson were a water bottle, tissues, a pencil, and a chair. I want my students to be able to understand what important means and be able to identify what is important about any given object.
I think with time they will be able to do that more easily instead of being prompted by me.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Day 23
Week 3
And the teaching continues!
I think this is the first day every single one of my students is here for the whole day. I'm a little surprised at this actually. I think I forgot to mention it in an earlier blog, but at one point last week six of my students went home sick throughout the day! It was so bad they moved my class to the library and sanitized the room. Thankfully I did not get sick!
Today I taught an English game with one of my co-teachers. Since the students were starting a new chapter called "what's in my bag". I had planned an activity where I show them things in a school bag and talk about what they are and then show them things in MY bag and talk about what they are. For the purpose of this class, I created a Venn Diagram for the students to use as they talk in pairs about what is in their school bag. However, when this lesson started, my co-teacher took over and didn't actually let me teach the lesson I had planned until the students already had their Venn Diagram sheet. When he handed it over to me I did my best to teach what I planned, and it worked slightly. My students were interested to see what I items I brought from my bag, and were especially interested when I pulled out a picture of my boyfriend and me. One of the boys asked if he was my dad which I had to chuckle at.
By the end of the lesson, my students had still not been able to complete the Venn Diagram because they were unable to focus which made me feel extremely defeated. I still tried to find what went well and what I can improve on, not only what went wrong. In this lesson what went well was grabbing their attention by pulling items out of my bag, reminding them that I will call on them if they are quiet, and writing a sample Venn Diagram for them.
And the teaching continues!
I think this is the first day every single one of my students is here for the whole day. I'm a little surprised at this actually. I think I forgot to mention it in an earlier blog, but at one point last week six of my students went home sick throughout the day! It was so bad they moved my class to the library and sanitized the room. Thankfully I did not get sick!
Today I taught an English game with one of my co-teachers. Since the students were starting a new chapter called "what's in my bag". I had planned an activity where I show them things in a school bag and talk about what they are and then show them things in MY bag and talk about what they are. For the purpose of this class, I created a Venn Diagram for the students to use as they talk in pairs about what is in their school bag. However, when this lesson started, my co-teacher took over and didn't actually let me teach the lesson I had planned until the students already had their Venn Diagram sheet. When he handed it over to me I did my best to teach what I planned, and it worked slightly. My students were interested to see what I items I brought from my bag, and were especially interested when I pulled out a picture of my boyfriend and me. One of the boys asked if he was my dad which I had to chuckle at.
By the end of the lesson, my students had still not been able to complete the Venn Diagram because they were unable to focus which made me feel extremely defeated. I still tried to find what went well and what I can improve on, not only what went wrong. In this lesson what went well was grabbing their attention by pulling items out of my bag, reminding them that I will call on them if they are quiet, and writing a sample Venn Diagram for them.
Day 22
Well I have officially been here for 3 weeks... wow! That went fast!
My Sunday is here and I am not motivated to do anything.. so what do I do?
I go to Cuppa Coffee and skype :)
I not only had a wonderful cup of coffee there this morning but I also had a wonderful ham and cheese danish. They make everything from scratch by the way. I stayed there for about 4 hours. It's really easy to do! When I came home I started planning what I was going to cook for our potluck dinner tonight, however, I wasn't sure it was still happening since I hadn't heard from either of the boys about it yet. Oh well! One of the student teachers was going to teach me how to make Chicken Adobo so I took my chicken out of the freezer and put it in the fridge so it could thaw.
While I was waiting for it to thaw, my roommate and I found Minority Report on TV in English. I'm liking that I have been successful with the TV lately, hopefully my luck continues.
Around 4pm I decided I should probably shower and get dressed, just in case we are having a potluck.
About a half hour later, one of the male student teachers came over and said he was just going to make some soup since his roommate was still visiting family in Hong Kong. We were all agreeable to taking it easy instead of doing a pot-luck, especially since my roommate was still getting over being sick.
I ended up making chicken fajitas.. except without the fajitas seasoning. I forgot to get some and was too hungry to care. On top of my fajitas, we found Moulin Rouge on TV (yes, in English!). I was thrilled! Definitely a wonderful way to end my relaxing weekend.
My Sunday is here and I am not motivated to do anything.. so what do I do?
I go to Cuppa Coffee and skype :)
I not only had a wonderful cup of coffee there this morning but I also had a wonderful ham and cheese danish. They make everything from scratch by the way. I stayed there for about 4 hours. It's really easy to do! When I came home I started planning what I was going to cook for our potluck dinner tonight, however, I wasn't sure it was still happening since I hadn't heard from either of the boys about it yet. Oh well! One of the student teachers was going to teach me how to make Chicken Adobo so I took my chicken out of the freezer and put it in the fridge so it could thaw.
While I was waiting for it to thaw, my roommate and I found Minority Report on TV in English. I'm liking that I have been successful with the TV lately, hopefully my luck continues.
Around 4pm I decided I should probably shower and get dressed, just in case we are having a potluck.
About a half hour later, one of the male student teachers came over and said he was just going to make some soup since his roommate was still visiting family in Hong Kong. We were all agreeable to taking it easy instead of doing a pot-luck, especially since my roommate was still getting over being sick.
I ended up making chicken fajitas.. except without the fajitas seasoning. I forgot to get some and was too hungry to care. On top of my fajitas, we found Moulin Rouge on TV (yes, in English!). I was thrilled! Definitely a wonderful way to end my relaxing weekend.
Day 20
Last day of the second full week :)
Today I had a chance to teach another lesson from The Important Book. This didn't go so well.. I taught two lessons back to back (in different classes mind you) and they were in the afternoon. The students were extremely rowdy and I could not get them under control.
In my lesson that revolved around The Important Book, I brought in pictures of things that are important to me and things that are important to my students. I used the pictures to prompt them to tell me was important in each and how the specific item is useful to us. After this introductory review of what "important" is, I had my students move to small groups and I gave each group an index card with a different thing written and drawn on it. I instructed the groups to discuss how the thing on their card is important and talk about how they use it. Some of the things on cards were a house, a dog, a pencil, and a book. This activity did not go so well because my students have not worked in small groups very much and did not know what was expected of them.
After the school day was over I went home and crashed. I was so exhausted (mentally, emotionally, and physically). I just wanted to sleep. A few hours later one of the other male student teachers and I went to a Thai restaurant near Cuppa Coffee. I really enjoyed this place, the food was really good. I got a seafood noodle dish that had a lot of things I recognized-- including squid. I did try it but I did not like it very much.
Living here is teaching me how I need to continually look at the positivity in life and appreciate everything I have.
Have a goodnight!
Today I had a chance to teach another lesson from The Important Book. This didn't go so well.. I taught two lessons back to back (in different classes mind you) and they were in the afternoon. The students were extremely rowdy and I could not get them under control.
In my lesson that revolved around The Important Book, I brought in pictures of things that are important to me and things that are important to my students. I used the pictures to prompt them to tell me was important in each and how the specific item is useful to us. After this introductory review of what "important" is, I had my students move to small groups and I gave each group an index card with a different thing written and drawn on it. I instructed the groups to discuss how the thing on their card is important and talk about how they use it. Some of the things on cards were a house, a dog, a pencil, and a book. This activity did not go so well because my students have not worked in small groups very much and did not know what was expected of them.
After the school day was over I went home and crashed. I was so exhausted (mentally, emotionally, and physically). I just wanted to sleep. A few hours later one of the other male student teachers and I went to a Thai restaurant near Cuppa Coffee. I really enjoyed this place, the food was really good. I got a seafood noodle dish that had a lot of things I recognized-- including squid. I did try it but I did not like it very much.
Living here is teaching me how I need to continually look at the positivity in life and appreciate everything I have.
Have a goodnight!
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