The TEFL course continues…

Day 4:

Things are clicking into place. It´s becoming more obvious where my fellow students and I have strengths and weaknesses. I feel really comfortable with the grammar classes (well, so far. I shouldn´t get over-confident). We’re putting into practice the method (theory) by reviewing the classes we’ve just had and writing an outline of what we’ve just learned into the lesson plan format. We were given our teaching schedule assignments and I only have one class next week, but three classes the third week. My last teaching class is the last hour of the last day! I´m not sure if that´s in my favor or not. 🙂

Day 5:

As homework we had to write a lesson plan schematic (not a full lesson plan, but more detailed than an outline). I only struggled with the area between how to present and practice the vocabulary and grammar. (There are three main areas of the method we are learning about: presentation, practice and production.) We had a huge chunk of time today to meet with a teacher one on one and then to write up the lesson plan in the official template. I met with Laura who reviewed the materials I was given to teach about and she recommended I have two presentation and practice sections. So, that made things alot easier. It´s really reassuring that they’re reviewing what we’re working on. And also reassuring that I had a decent first draft.

Half of my group took class in Russian to learn what it´s like to be at an absolute 0 level student. (The other half will take a Croatian class next week.) I followed the beginning part alright, but the number part was too fast for me and I just kind of gave up. I felt guilty because I know she was trying, but it was really difficult for me. Even when the words were written on the board with the English alphabet letters, they aren’t pronounced how they looked. For example, the number 1 is written as ¨odin¨ but it sounded like ¨adin.¨ I know we may encounter students like me who just kind of give up, so I’ll have to have some backup plans on what to do if that starts to happen.

Day 6

There’s a saying that goes something like “Worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe.” That’s how I’m feeling about having my first teaching practice class tomorrow (where I’ll be teaching to a non-native English speaker and being evaluated by one of our teachers). I’m not nervous at the moment, but nerves don’t usually hit me until the last second.

Some people had their first teaching practice today and were quite nervous. They seemed in good spirits afterward though. I’ll have to ask them more about it tomorrow.

My group met with the non-native English speaker we’re going to profile for our group project. She’s really nice and has a good level. There are a lot of different analyses to do for this project but at least we can divide it amongst ourselves.

On a side note, I’m surprised at how many people have come here straight from college. They don’t know how to cook and are living on cereal and sandwiches! 🙂

-Lisa