Friday, February 23, 2007

Observed!

So, I'm sure everyone is wondering how my observation went.
It was weird. First of all, I had one student show up. When I asked him about the other students, he said that they had all gone out for drinks last night and (his words) had gotten pissed. There is a table in the classroom, so I just invited him to come up and sit next to me for the lesson. (This meant that my back was turned to the observer--which suit me just fine!). I could hear her writing lots and lots of notes--probably not a good thing, but whatever. I sort of followed my lesson plan, but I changed the emphasis a little (the student needed a bit more practice in some aspects of the activities, so I focused on those). Here is what I think the comments will be: I probably talked too much (and did not leave enough time for student response--I have a problem with this in general), I didn't do activity comprehension checks (which I think are a little odd in one-on-one lessons as human interaction does not generally come with questions that ask: what are you going to do now? How many sentences are you going to write? What verb form are you going to use to ask this question?), I probably didn't do error correction the way I'm supposed to (but again, it is something I do differently for one-on-one versus class lessons). Basically, I feel that for most of what I did, I had a reason. My actions (and reasons) may not be the ones that the school is looking for, but... this is who I am (for better or worse).
I have another observation next Tuesday, which will probably be a little more illustrative of my teaching style with a group. We shall see. I won't get any feedback from my observation today until Monday, though the observer did promise me that she would send me a general text/e-mail. I haven't received anything yet, though, so that concerns me a little. (No easy answer). Ugh.

5 Comments:

At 8:33 AM, Blogger Ovonia Red said...

My text message:

"Hello. I couldn't see any major flaws in the lesson or the lesson plan, so from my point it's fine. I made some notes and will have a couple of suggestions for you when we meet on Monday. Have a nice weekend."

There it is.

DJ

 
At 7:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Had you had any one-on-one teaching sessions there, other than when you were being reviewed? Sounds like you did a Very good job being flexible and adapting the lesson plan on your feet.
And, to paraphrase a line from Sex & the City, "it sounds like what you've got there is a rave review."

Isn't apprehension (and/or dread) always worse than the actual event? If I could bottle anti-apprehension spray (without a pharmaceutical license, and legally.) I think I'd be set for life. :)

Enjoy the weekend! You earned it!

 
At 8:47 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It seems so unfair for them to leave you hanging for the weekend without any feedback. What a treat having just one student!

 
At 12:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, everyone probably said it already, but I'll second them. :-) I think you're probably a pretty good teacher. Your only likely problem is relative inexperience, and there's only one way to fix that!

Hugs, and let me know if you want to Skype tomorrow (Sunday),
Shari

 
At 2:03 PM, Blogger Ovonia Red said...

Ugh. Still can't sign in to post a new blog entry, so I'm just going to leave a comment.

I had my feedback session today. It was very quick--I'd say no longer than ten minutes. Basically, everything is fine. My main issue is that I need to be more authoritative--raise my voice a little and let 'em know who is in charge. The observer/reviewer said that I needed to work on finding the balance between being nurturing and being in charge.

Anyway, I have my regularly scheduled observation tomorrow evening. I should actually have a class this time (or at least two people). I will ask my observer if she doesn't mind looking at my authoritative presence (or lack thereof) in the classroom. I'm less nervous about this observation, though I am trying to remind myself that pride goeth before a fall. (or, more likely in my case, not paying attention goeth before a fall).

Oh, one thing that the reviewer said today--she could tell that I had teaching experience. Yea! That means I don't look like a *complete* idiot/novice/a$$hole (okay, maybe not so much the last one).

Anyway, I think today is a blue mark day. I did my time sheets today and, even with the break and two cancellations (and losing one class), it looks like I am going to have enough money to eat for the next month. Yea! (Though I'm not going to have enough money to buy that really, really, really awesome top I saw in Marks and Spencers last weekend. It was freakin' awesome and it looked excellent on me, but it was OVER 1000 CROWNS! Insane. That's more than five teaching hours--before taxes! I'm telling myself that I can't get it (well, duh, because of the cost) because it didn't quite fit... it was just a tiny bit too big (and no dryers here to shrink it down a little. In fact, I tend to buy my clothes with the idea that I will be putting it in the dryer and that will tighten it up a little. No dryers here, so most of my clothes are fitting a little big. Anyway).

Yeah, so there it is.

 

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