Phew, so today was supposed to be the beginning of my Christmas lessons, and I guess it was. However, Mr Beak failed to tell me that he was going to take up over half of each lesson himself with administration stuff.
I should have heard the alarm bells when I came in this morning and told him I needed to do some photocopying for class. He said "Oh, no, no, no...". Not like 'no, you can't', but like 'no, you don't need to do that, it's unnecessary'. I just looked confused and told him it was for class, so he went and got it copied. He refuses to let me know how to get the office ladies to do mass amounts of class copying. It's annoying, because it means I have to bother him EVERY time. Like, you can give a starving kid a fish and it'll feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish.... Well, it's the same with photocopying, right? Yeah, it's nice of you to do it for me, but if you'd show me how, I could do it without bugging you. But, perhaps he wants to oversee my copying? I don't know. He probably doesn't even consider that there are more efficient ways of doing ANYTHING. It sure seems that way :)
Anywho, the copying did get done. But then, my first class rolls around and he says he needs 20 minutes of it... which turned into 35 minutes. So, I got 10 minutes. This is incredibly unprofessional and annoying. I had prepared a full 45min lesson including vocabulary presentation, two practice games, and then a review competition. I only had time for the presentation in the first class. He took up the whole of the second class, so I didn't get to teach at all. Then, he gave me the first 20 minutes of the last two classes, again, only time for the presentation. *Sigh*. There is absolutely no point in me every trying to plan lessons that follow some kind of building block structure in this school, as I'd never get past the first base level. They cancel my classes, give 10 or 20 minutes when I have 45 planned. During one of my lessons today, Mr Beak actually stopped me from doing a planned activity so he could talk some more himself. So, all that photocopying he did has no been used at all. I am working hard at going with the flow, but it is seriously disrespectful to my teaching and really unprofessional. I don't want to sound all up on my high-horse... but I know I can do better.
And speaking of doing better, I am hopeful that nothing will destroy my winter camp classes. After going to the TESOL conference two weekends ago I have been thinking about how I can consciously work towards growing as a teacher. All the things to do and areas for improvement are seriously overwhelming, so I figured that just focusing in on one area at a time is the way to go. My area for winter camp is behaviour management (yeah, a big 'little focus'!). I want to work on some simple methods for motivating students to behave well and do their work. Some things I plan on doing are:
- Have a clear set of rules for the class that we will go over before the course starts.
- Have clear consequences for breaking these rules.
- Have a reward system for doing well.
- Have a simple, effective routine to get students attention (mine is a clap + response type thing).
I've written these up as a set of guidelines that I'll go over with the students and also put on the wall of the class throughout camp. I've also made a cute chart for their stamps to go on, and hopefully this encourages some participation.
They get different treats to eat while watching the end of camp movie depending on how many stamps they get. 4 stamps = a lollipop, 5 = a small chocolate bar, 6 = lollipop and chocolate, while 7-8 = a doughnut. I'm sure that making the prizes food is setting them up for uncontrollable weight-gain in the future (you know, seeing food as a reward is reportedly a bad thing), but what the heck. Who doesn't want a doughnut while watching a movie??
And that is all for today :) Only one hour till home time.
No comments:
Post a Comment