Just like that hour 7 is complete. For the first time I’ve come out not feeling stressed, or defeated, or like a fraud. I think because I’m still a student in my undergrad degree I don’t feel like I can be a teacher. Maybe the others who have finished their degree also feel like this. I know Karen has talked about it in class, but it’s one thing to talk about it and one thing to feel it myself. I never really had a massive dream to be a teacher and while I am really liking it, this idea that I should have known I wanted to be one when I was young kind of plagued me for a lot of the program. But, it seems like it’s starting to pass! So that’s good.
Incoming information from multiple sides is kind of difficult to keep in my head. The information learned in my culture class, and then learned in my technique class, and then also in practicum class as well as my sponsor teacher bounce around in my head. It’s hard to keep track of in my brain. I think it’s a bit like learning anything, but I can relate it to learning languages. You see words and at first they are foreign, and then eventually you can learn how to sound them out, but adding in the grammar and new vocabulary kind of makes everything fall out until multiple exposure has occurred. I don’t know, maybe this analogy doesn’t make sense.
In my actual teaching today I think I’ve finally gotten comfortable at being more animated in the classroom. I was able to laugh at myself with the students at my awkward attempt at playing a game, and they were receptive my teaching. The format of the lesson went really well also. My teaching partner and I have been changing up our routine a bit and right now it’s working out well. The class time is essentially divided into thirds, with each of us teaching in one of those, and then going into breakout rooms to monitor and interact more closely with students in pairs. The timing was almost spot on as well today. Everything is looking sunny!
Next week I am going to try and limit the choices I give my students so I limit the chance of confusion, as well as working on my prompting for next week. I will also try and add in a bit more error correction in the breakout rooms to really help the students.
