Lesson of the day

My first lesson went absolutely awesome today! Like I said in the previous post, I learned 7th graders like the "hokey pokey" and "head, shoulders, knees, and toes". While they were shy at the beginning of the lesson I think the songs really helped them out and hopefully (fingers crossed!) they will be more talkative and active for the rest of the year. It was the first time they've had English class since school started so maybe it was because they are still in summer mode and they forgot their English... who knows!

The second lesson, which was with the 10th grade, didn't go so well. I had the lesson all planned out- it seemed great! Due to the fact that I was not able to get in contact with my partner teacher before late last night, we weren't able to do the plans together, so I had to do them when I had a break between classes. So, like I said, it seemed great! Had the plans been made ahead of time then I would have had time to look for pictures of the vocabulary words to create a slideshow, or I could have drawn flashcards with markers and such. But, due to the lack of time, that wasn't possible. I figured it would be OK because there were pictures of the vocab words in the books. What I didn't know, however, was that the words were not cognates and the students had no idea what they meant when having to do a matching exercise (lobster? rhinoceros? blimp? freighter? really??) . When I realized they had no idea how to match the word with the picture from the book, I was at a loss- as was my partner teacher. I ended up having to give them the answers to that we could complete another exercise.

What did I learn from this? PLAN AHEAD!!! While I did plan ahead, I didn't plan ahead enough so that I could prepare materials. Just because my partner teachers aren't used to having visuals (so it's easier to prepare with less time) doesn't mean I can't do it. I mean, PCV's are here to create something sustainable... and visuals (and actual written plans!) will help with that.

Oh what a day.

On a different note... I did laundry for the first time since I arrived at my new site. It's been awhile. lol