Overall midterms weren't too bad (based on the grades I've gotten so far) but yesterday was the culmination of the stress.
As you know, I'm doing an internship where I'm an assistant to a teacher of English in a French middle school. Yesterday was the first time I was all alone in the classroom with about 14 students. I planned most of the lesson myself (with some suggestions from the real teacher) and I was, I thought, prepared.
As it turns out, I was slightly mistaken.
The teacher of the class thought that what I had originally planned could be done in two classes, and if I had strictly followed what she told me to do I think I would have been fine. But it was my first day, I was being observed by my pedagogy teacher, and I wasn't feeling like boring the crap out of my class.
So I didn't actually end up doing the activities that my teacher suggested I do, but I didn't have anything else planned...so what did I do? I improvised. For over 25 minutes of a class.
Now that may not sound like a lot, but if you've ever taught or even had to keep a group of teenagers entertained and willing to learn and be interactive then you know how difficult it can be...
This is what happened, generally, when I decided to improvise:
"Okay, now we're going to define these words. Can you guess what -insert word here- means?"
Crickets. Blank stares. A few death glares. A very worried look on the program director's face.
And silence.
I put my paper down on the desk, took a deep breath, and said,
"Okay, everybody stand up."
The students were shocked and looked around like "whoa what are we doing" because admittedly it was out of nowhere, and I could tell the program director was glad to see some life given to the class.
At this point, I kicked into overdrive and I can't even explain my thought process. I didn't think, I just did. I modified my activities, had everybody participate, and that's kind of how it went for the rest of the class.
If I could tell they were bored, I went on a rant about my jobs in high school (because after school jobs was our topic) or talked about minimum wage.
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| And in other news, it's almost Easter! My mom sent me a card and a chocolate bunny (eaten in a matter of 3 days), my sister sent me a card, egg-shaped bubble gum, and a pack of fake moustaches (?), and my grandma sent me a card too! It was really nice to get them all in the mail :) |
Overall, I forgot to do a few important things (aka give them their homework assignment) and a lot of my objectives fell by the wayside simply because I refused to be one of those painfully boring teachers, not to mention I went over the time without even realizing it. And there definitely were points during the class where I know a few students wanted to kill me with their eyes, but they seem to be the ones who have attitude problems so I don't care that much.
By the end of class as the last of the students left the classroom, I looked at the program director, shook my head, and tried not to cry. It was a long, stressful hour and I was just about done. At that point I was positive it was a terrible course and I was ready to give up. But I pulled it together and sat down with my program director and the real teacher (who came in after the dismissal bell rang) and prepared for the worst.
But I was surprised to hear that overall, it wasn't too bad. Apparently I did a pretty good job of managing the class (walking around, talking to everyone, having kids participate, dealing with the few who were chatty), I had a strong classroom presence, and there weren't any blanks. So I guess I'm just a really freaking good improvisor.
Oh and also the program director couldn't really tell I was stressed out of my mind while I was teaching, which is a really good thing if you ask me because that means the students couldn't sense it either :) But I'm not really surprised, I'm pretty good at holding myself together until I don't have to anymore.
As it turns out, my self-confidence is entirely too low when it comes to school work and my capabilities and what not...I don't know why, it doesn't make much sense. Something I need to work on, I guess. I seem to rotate between thinking I'm absolutely terrible at everything to thinking I'm the very best/being cocky, neither of which are true, so I just need to find a good middle ground.
I had a massive headache after that experience...but at least now I know that I need to plan more games, use more songs and videos, and plan the class how I want it to be planned instead of assuming that what works for an experienced teacher with lots of authority will work the same for me. I'm looking forward to the next times I teach though, I'm going to focus my lessons more around fun activities than boring learning.
I'm the American, after all! They were really interested in figuring out the minimum wage conversion and all of that so I'm going to focus on bringing my culture (yes, we Americans do have a culture!) into the room instead of a super formal learning experience. It's one hour per week, how much could I actually teach them anyway?
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