First Week of Teaching!

My first week of student teaching is complete!! And it went pretty well! I didn't end up teaching on Monday, which was great, because I got to observe my teachers with their classes before I stepped in. So Tuesday was my first day, and I've taught every day since then and will be teaching every day from now on until the end of term! My first lesson went pretty well, except that there was a slight technology dysfunction as my USB flash drive wasn't working, so I couldn't put my outlines up on the projector like I had planned. It was fine, I worked around it by writing them on the board, but I think it would have been a more effective lesson if I had them on the projector like I wanted. Having to write on the board detracted from the outline itself because I didn't want to take the time to write the whole thing out, and it also detracted from my lecturing, because I had to write on the board while I was talking. But it turned out fine, and my teacher said it went well. He's been giving me lots of pointers about classroom management, which is the part that I need to work on the most. It's also the part I was most nervous about, so I'm not so surprised that it needs the most work. However, my teacher did say that I was good at explaining things, and that he can tell that I have a mastery of the subject of English. After my last lesson, he said that he can tell that the students respect me as a teacher, and that they can tell they're in good hands, since I know the material so well. So that was very comforting to hear. But I need to focus on slowing down (of course, and especially with my accent), and pausing at times to make sure everyone is with me. But every time my teacher gives me hints about classroom management, he prefaces it by saying that by no means was my lesson bad, but here are just some ways it could be better. So that's good. So far, no bad lessons. With my year 8s, we're doing narrative poetry, so for my first lesson I wrote a poem about myself and had them analyze it for poetic techniques like similes and metaphors. Then they had to write their own poems, so I'm excited to collect and read those tomorrow. And with my year 11 advanced class, they have a big standardized test coming up in a few weeks, so we've mostly been prepping for that. It's not the most exciting thing to teach, but it's good to learn how to teach it. I've really had to push myself to come up with interesting ways to teach multiple choice strategies and in-class worksheets without being too tedious or boring. But each lesson I teach gets better, and I'm becoming more confident in the classroom, which will help my classroom management as well. I realized on Thursday that I feel about learning to teach the way I felt about learning to drive back when I was 15 - I don't want to go through the learning process, I just want to know how! But I know that the learning process is important, and that these next few weeks will probably shape who I will be as a teacher for the rest of my life. My students are really good, for the most part; I have a few that are rather talkative, but that's just something I have to learn how to deal with. I have also been really productive at school; I only teach about 3 periods a day, sometimes only two, so I have a lot of time at school where I can just sit at my desk and do work. I've been getting a lot done, doing almost all of my lesson planning during my off periods, so I don't have to bring my work home with me, which is nice. When I get back from school I can just relax and wind down, which is really great. I'm also starting to get to know the other teachers in the English department, and they're all really nice. One of them is teaching To Kill A Mockingbird, and she asked if I would come into her class one day and talk about the American aspect of it. And I am hopefully going to start getting involved in sports next week - maybe coaching basketball or something. I also get a wee bit of a break this coming week, because the Year 11s are at camp on Monday and Tuesday, and since two of my classes are Year 11, I only have to teach my Year 8s on Monday and Tuesday this week. So that will give me a lot of time to get ahead in my lesson planning, which is great. It will also allow me some time to work on marking (grading) some work I've collected, with my teacher, of course.

This weekend has been nice and relaxing. Friday night, my roommate Yenting and I went down to the Noodle Markets in Hyde Park - it's good food month here in Sydney, so all this past week, a lot of the asian restaurants in the city have had booths down in Hyde Park and had cheaper versions of their noodle dishes. So we finally made it down on Friday, and oh my goodness it was PACKED! There were so many people!! And so many different restaurants to choose from! We ended up picking the one with the shortest line, but the food was really good! We also got gelato, too, which was delicious as well. I had coconut lychee. It was very refreshing. It was a beautiful night, too, so it was nice to be out and about, even if it was just for a bit. We then headed back home for a night of relaxing and watching TV - they show really funny old movies on Friday nights on the free TV channels, so it's pretty entertaining. We watched the end of Election, a 1999 movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. It was pretty bad. But also pretty funny. Saturday, I slept in a little (well, slept in for me), and then caught up on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. Then Yenting and I headed out to the Chippendale Food For the Future festival (Chippendale is the neighborhood we live in). It was pretty small, but they had some cool stuff - a lot of booths with information about sustainability - and we got some really good sausages for lunch. Then we headed over to the Glebe markets, which are right around the corner from our apartment. They happen every Saturday, and I keep missing them, so I was really excited that we got to go. They have so much cool stuff there! They have these awesome wind chimes that are made from old teapots with spoons and forks as the chimes, and there were these great big wooden frames, that had spots for lots of pictures. Neither of those explanations really seem to do them justice (so maybe I'm only good at explaining things when they are English terms...), but they were awesome. There's also a ton of really cool jewelry - I got a really cute ring, and some cool earrings, and Yenting got a really cute dress, too. After the Glebe markets, we went down to Paddy's Market for some fresh fruit and veg for the week. I got some apples to bring to school, and veggies to make stir fry later this week, and some fresh tomatoes and basil - yum. Then for dinner last night, I went out to an Indian restaurant called Posh Spice out in Newtown, which is another of Sydney's neighborhoods, for one of the girls in the internship program's birthday. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to try Indian food, especially since I know I don't like curry, but it was actually delicious!! They also had bollywood dancing there, and Meggie, the birthday girl, got to go up and dance with them. It was very entertaining. We then went out to a club in Kings Cross to go dancing. It was really fun! And today my roommates and I were going to go down to the Chinese Gardens in Darling Harbour, because they're free today, but there's actually a massive thunderstorm on, so we've decided to stay in. It'll be a good opportunity to get a jump on my lesson plans for next week, and to prepare for the lessons I have this week. This coming week, Professor White from BU is here to observe us, which means free dinners on Monday and Friday with him and Mark! Tomorrow we're doing something low key, but Friday night is more "upmarket," as Mark said, so that should be fun and exciting! I'm also excited to see Charlie, as we call Professor White. He's a pretty cool guy. Though I am nervous to be observed, hopefully everything will go well.

That's it for now! I think I'm going to enjoy the thunderstorm by cuddling up and watching a vampire movie for research for my vampire fiction unit that I'm teaching. Miss you all very much!!!