Go, find balance Daniel San!

I'm not sure if any of you know this, but this last week was "Daniel Teacher's Official Sentence Week" (the beginning of many truth be told, but one must start somewhere).  I wrote this on the WB and my students were asking me open display questions. S1: "Teacher, what does that mean?"  T: Does anybody know? S4: "It means we have to answer in sentences." and to stay true to my IRF roots :p   I offered the feedback  T: S4 is a genius!!"
It was gratifying to listen to my students this week, demanding sentence answers from other teams. They expect  nothing but the best (from the other teams, that is).
 Writing my research paper uncovered some not so great habits that I have incorporated into my classes:

"Teachers need to be discouraged from always ‘filling in the gaps’ in the discourse of the EFL classroom. By so doing, they may be creating a smooth-flowing exchange, but reducing opportunities for interactional adjustments and learning potential."  

Walsh, S. 2002  Construction or obstruction: teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. The Queen’s University of Belfast. Language Teaching Research 6,1 (2002); p.20

I am a filler of gaps. I like to approach my class like a game show, and as we all know a fast game is a good game.  In my haste sometimes I have prevented other students from interacting.  Also in my defense, if I have already called on three people with their hands raised and I'm getting nowhere, I will interject the answer  I am looking for, to the disgust of the one S who actually did know the answer.    My goal is to find balance.  I want my students to have a fun class, but I also want to give them opportunities to practice their L2.  Time is not my friend.  

Confessions of a Lousy Science Teacher

 Maybe the title's a bit harsh, but I'm riding the emotional rollercoaster that goes along with being a teacher and I've just come off a mountain top and I'm in a valley at the moment.  I finished the week last week playing a ppt game that all the kids loved.  I forgot to take my textbooks and teachers guides home for the weekend and I started the week off ill-prepared.  I knew the basic ideas, but when teaching 5th Grade Science, the textbook is actually quite in depth (American 5th Grade Textbook). My cursory Science knowledge is somewhat lacking or exposed when one of my brainy students asks me a question, or asks me to clarify, when I haven't read all the fine print.
My topic this week was Animal Classification. I spent a great deal of time making game questions for the "Sit down if you can't ______" game.  I gave each of the students a piece of paper with a command on it. I told them don't show anyone your paper.  I will then ask you to read it to the whole class and they must obey what  you say.  "Sit down if you can't snap your fingers"  etc.   I was really excited about the game, and I was more excited when the kids actually understood why we played the game.  However, I spent too much time on the game and trying to get the meaning of it through to the kids, that I pretty much wasted one class. Now I have a lot of information to cover, and only one class to do it in, and all the kids will be hanging out to play the ppt game again.

I've created a nice little mess for myself - WAAH!!!!!  All this week I've been chasing my tail.  It would be nice to actually have all my lessons for the week sorted by the weekend or Monday at the latest.

Daniel Teacher vs The Midget Wrestler

Normally students walk through my classroom door and say "Hi Teacher" or "Annyong" in which case I send them back out to walk through the "magic vacuum" one more time to remove the Korean words from their mouths.  Today was a little different, however, when Will (my shortest student by a good 20cms) comes running through the door and yells "Teacher, let's fight!!"   He is such a funny little kid, but what he lacks in height, he makes up for in verbal production.

I videotaped this class (minus the opening fight scene sadly) only to find out that Will, will definitely be a challenge for me this semester.  He talks at 100 miles an hour and has no filter between his brain and his mouth.

Personally I noticed my lesson beginnings are very loose and unstructured and they eventually morph into a lesson, but I should tighten that up.  I really need to focus a bit more in the break before class starts.  I am employing the students asking students questions technique, and they are really enjoying the lesson, but I still talk too much.

The Magical Vacuum

Just for grins :)
I am pleasantly surprised at the English skills of my students, in comparison to my last school, they are quite good..  That said, we have been encouraged to not let the students speak Korean in our English classrooms.
I asked my students for a show of hands as to who practices their English outside of the classroom, out in the hallways, and around school.  There was a few hands in the higher levels, but mostly they agreed, that if they were going to speak English, it would be done in the English classrooms.

I explained to them that as they enter my classroom, and go through the door. It's  like a Magical Vacuum that sucks all of the Korean words out of their mouths and magically replaces them with English words.  I stepped outside the classroom and walked backed in saying  "Annyong Ha ---llo"  or "Kawi, Bawi , paper".  (Rock scissor paper).  The kids got a real kick out of this and have been "hamming it up" and getting quite creative with this all week :)  It really makes me laugh, to see my students being "punny" in English.

The Plague of Frogs

One of my go-to ice breakers is to make an origami super jumping frog.  It's fairly simple to make and if made well, the frog can jump pretty high.  Anyway, I am the science teacher and I thought, we study frogs in science, so it's applicable.
Little dd I know that I was responsible for unleashing a "Plague of Frogs" of biblical proportions!!  My co-workers would mention to me in a round about way
Co-worker (CW): "Are you finished teaching the origami frog lesson yet?"
Me: "Sure, why?"
CW: Because I am confiscating about 20 of them every class." (hint of frustration in the tone)
Me:  Oops, sorry.  Yeah go ahead and confiscate - I'm done.

My students loved making them, and they are doing so in great numbers.  Two students in particular have over 30 frogs each.  I guess you can't have everyone like you all the time :)

1st day and meeting students

My first official blog ever.......
Today in class I met my students for the first time.  I am the 5th grade Science teacher at a Private Elementary School.  I have my own classroom and the students come to me :)    I am still getting used to the processes and requirements of my new job, but I can already tell that this place is a LOT more organized, than my previous job.   The top two favorite expressions of my old boss were: "It is changed" (normally spoken after work had already been completed, and would have to be repeated in another format...grrr) and "It is not yet decided".  My old boss was very disorganized and thrived on creating stressful situations in the last minute.  On the first day of my new job they gave me important dates to prepare for, and also stated the busy months of the school year, so make sure you allow for these busy times by getting your work done in advance :)  All good things!

I will have approximately 100 students and in meeting them today, I took pictures of them, and will label the pictures with their names to help me recall all or most of their names.  I was happy to find 5 or 6 students that I had previously taught in Kindergarten.   They had lost their baby fat and grown a foot taller.  It was an interesting interaction for me to reintroduce myself 4 years later :)

I am for all intensive purposes in control of what I teach, which is pretty awesome.  This is a freedom that I have not yet experienced, but it will also be somewhat of a challenge given my poor time management skills. The benefits I see are being able to choose the meat of the material and leave the random bits of information that the students don't really have to know.  I was advised by the foreign head teacher, that above all my job is to teach English (just with a Science flavor).   I like this!

I employed the hand shaking attention getter device, and my students responded to it pretty well.  I also gave them the option of me yelling at them individually "HEY YOU OVER IN THE BACK. BE QUIET!!!!" , but they chose the hand shaker option :)    The levels of English classes that I met today were A, B, and C levels.  I have yet to meet the "D's" but I'll be interested to see how the "hand shaker" works with them.

Much more to do tonight
peace out