Sunday, October 18, 2009

Finally, some (teaching) action

Following a very strange day, here I am trying to work on tomorrow's lesson, which includes the first observation, diagnostic, unassessed, but still scary in some ways.
I will only have two students, my Czech guys, which means a good environment, but lots of work on my part as I cannot really set up speaking tasks and let them go for hours without joining in. Oh, well, it's just my luck I suppose, and besides, it will only show my "skills" in keeping a tiny class live and awake despite the "boredom" of having a really limited number of students.
So tomorrow we are discussing modals of deduction in the past, listening to mysterious events, playing "The maze of terror", one of my favourite activities, and it took me an hour to prepare the whole thing, materials included.
The lesson before, for the moment, is a revision of narrative tenses focusing on short stories to read, complete, invent...easy stuff possibly! I am quite confident about it all, I have been observed so many times, everything is planned properly (as in: in more details than usual, which simply means that I had to think of a specific reason for the activites rather than a generic thought of "listening and fill the gaps with words that I taught earlier"). Feedback due on Thursday, which will give me time to write my self-evalution form, update my journal, start writing the Action Research Thingy where I consider where I am as a teacher, what my beliefs are, strengths, weaknesses, ideas for improvement, all that stuff.
Plans for the rest of the day, then:
first of all, I should take a quick look at the first part of tomorrow's lesson, although I have already spent about 2 hours doing so, in the past 3 days. Trouble is, the more I look at it, the less I remember, the more I get confused because I start thinking of ways to link this lesson to the other lessons in the week, and things that we need to revise, and problems that arose on Friday during the revision game, and all that... I do love this job because it keeps my mind active and jumpy.
Later on, a walk seems the best idea: the sun is out, the leaves are a beautiful colour, Stour Valley will be lovely, my camera is ready, and my body is calling for some more movement than the tapping of fingers on the keyboard or standing up to go get more books from my desk...
And finally, just a few days before I have my very hectic Italian weekend, starting Friday, which will leave me exhausted and at the beginning of the reading week, so I'll have time to catch up with books that I haven't read, and start planning my first observed lesson, and finish that ART (Action Research Thingy).

And now, before going back to books and lesson plans, I think a bit of yoga sounds appropriate...

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