Whew three days in a row is a bit much... I usually do two days a week because a) my lessons are made for two days b) students can handle two days better than three c) I get too tired to do more than two days. I can honestly say today was not great. I think the 6th and 7th graders really drain me. They are insanely antsy and squirrely... by the middle of the lesson I had to sit down. That's a big deal. I never ever sit down I always stand and walk around and engage with the entire classroom. So just the fact that I sat down really tells me how tired I was. Third gradersAnother day another set of classes! I went in to the third grade classroom and the teacher was no where to be seen. Not to sound like a broken record but lessons tend to go better for the young ones if the teacher is there. Still, it went pretty well. Once the teacher did come the students really calmed down. My biggest concern is how long the actual lesson took. I am just going to not get too weird about it and calm down and play everything by ear.
Fifth gradersThe dictation is good because it forces students to work on retention but boy does it take a good chunk of class time. I don't know how good I feel about sacrificing learning time (class time) for dictation tests. I guess it makes sense because it doesn't matter how much information you throw at students if they don't catch on and hold on to any of it. Sixth and seventh gradersOof. This class is tough. I literally sat down in this class. I never sit. I think I mentioned all this earlier but I must say it all applies to this class. This class just wears me out. I think one factor could be that there are too many students in the class. Some students truly have no interest in the class. The problem is that I have a hard time telling any student, no matter how unproductive, to not come. At the same time, maybe that is not such a bad thing as the opportunity to learn is then taken from everyone... so then no one learns. It's just that this class is supposed to be open to everyone and showing up in itself is an achievement. Let's just cross our fingers that next week will be better. Eighth and ninth and tenth and eleventh graders?Okay so eighth and ninth graders were joined by the next class too. I have no idea why but hey I mean they showed up (100% improvement form yesterday). I placed them in an adjacent classroom with those three girls who were also doing worksheets (for those who are not caught up -- I have three girls who already know my lessons so I got them worksheets instead). It was a challenge trying to teach a class and going over to check answers on the other side. It went okay but whenever I would leave the 8th and 9th graders, all chaos would break loose. One trip to the other classroom gave an eighth grader ample time to rip the pages out of another student's book. I hope the older students do decide to come on time because it would help keep the other class on track. Overall, the eleventh grade students really appreciated the worksheets -- they asked for the book which I happily gave. The ninth graders thought their sheets, which were meant for their grade, to be too hard. The tenth graders found the O/L worksheets too hard so I gave them the ninth grade sheets and they also found it too hard. I guess a challenge is never a bad thing but I am considering looking at some eighth or seventh grade worksheets for next week.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHi! I'm Samalya. When I'm not running about cramming for school I sit on my laptop and (attempt to) make a curriculum to improve spoken English in rural Sri Lanka! Categories
All
Archives
July 2019
|