- hi, i'm teacher anne -
my baptism of fire on teaching

thanks to chris and may, i finally got the chance to take a stab at teaching kids - for real. chris was not available for his class today (by today, i mean friday :) ) so he asked me to subsitute for him - to teach a 2-hour english class to at most 11 kids who are at grades 5 to 7 ... being the "noble" person that i am *as my friend chireh commented*, i did it probono ... i was just after the experience and not really the money ...

i was apprehensive at first since i have no formal training ... but i know i want this - so i decided to plunge ahead ... i also thought that this will be a good chance for me to gauge if this is really what i want to do ...

the lesson plan ...
we're to study english conversations ... considering the age of my students, i believe that their attention span is still not that long and they can get bored easily (even at age 27 - given the "right" circumstances - i still get bored easily) ... chris told me that they have games available in the school ... but i decided to create my own (with a little help from the internet ;) ) ... so here was the final plan -
(1) getting to know each other
(2) conversation set 1
(3) living sentence game (http://french.about.com/od/teachingresources/a/livingsentences.htm)
(4) conversation set 2
(5) buzzer game (a question is asked to 2 kids and whoever presses the buzzer first will have the chance to answer)
(6) conversation set 3
(7) flyswatter game (http://french.about.com/library/teachers/bl-moustique.htm)
(8) assignment notebook (this is a standard for evey class, kids need to write what they studied as well as their assignment)

the preparation ... a day before my first teaching stint
i only got a hold of the reading material last wednesdi ... so came tarsdi ...
1) went to the school to get a feel of the venue ... chris also gave me a CD with all the lessons from the material
(2) went shopping for colored papers, colored pens, desk buzzer, flyswatter etc etc ...
(3) spent ~4 hours to come up with the game gadgets
(4) spent ~1 hour to divide the conversations from the CD and copy them in my laptop

the preparation ... 1 hour before my first teaching stint ... started having butterflies ...
i felt just like this yahoo emoticon ->
(1) brushed my teeth
(2) combed my unruly hair
(3) made sure i don't have anything up my nose :P
(4) farted *i'm not sure if this was really necessary*

the preparation ... 30 minutes before my first teaching stint ... butterflies almost gone ... just plain pumped ...
(1) re-arranged the seats
(2) checked and re-checked my materials
(3) wrote needed info on the white board
(4) put up materials that needs putting up on the board
(5) opened media player on my laptop and set up the track list with the conversations
(6) opened the aircon
(7) sat down and waited

the verdict ... i want to teach : ) ... i had sooooo much fun! i believe i was able to keep their attention - no small thanks to the games that i prepared ... i had an audience of 9 kids - 2 of them were boys ... they were a little rowdy but it was okay ... everyone cooperated ... and i think they had fun as well ... as for learning something - they were able to answer my questions during the game ... and that's *kul* enough for me : ) ....

here's my teaching turf ...