El último día

Ayer fue mi último día en el colegio. I got thank you cards from all of my classes, and it was really nice to read all of the comments.

Some of my favorites:

"Hola! Thank you for being an amazing teacher! Good luck in the future! You will make a great teacher :)"

"Thanks for being our great teacher and your support and help for us to learn Spanish. I appreciate that. We'll miss you so much."

"You were so helpful and a great teacher. I understood everything you taught in class. You were very helpful at Smart Lunch too! Thank you!"

Some of the more hilarious ones:

"Thank you. I wish you were my teacher." Oh darling, what would you call the past 6 weeks?

"Thank you for teaching us even though we weren't the best kids. You will be missed!" 

"Thank you for teaching our class! I will miss you putting sad faces on my homework log." (she never did her homework, lol)

"Should of stayed. Now I won't pass lol." (He wasn't passing when I was there, I don't know why me leaving makes that much of a difference... lol)

Oh, they gave me trouble some times but I'm gonna miss them :')

Middle School Visit

Today I went to visit Amber at her middle school! She taught Spanish 2 and 3 during her semester, and it was nice to see some of the kids she taught. They were so well behaved and interested in speaking/using Spanish, I couldn't believe it. As her CT explained, in a magnet school like theirs, with so many electives, they tend to get the kids that want to be there instead of those that "have" to, so that makes it better. Still, it was wonderful to see students that wanted to learn and were easily answering the teacher's questions and participating. They did a fun activity that was "speed-dating" style: 4 rows of students, given a topic to talk about with their partner for 2 minutes. After the time was up, the teacher threw a stuffed tiger to a student, who then had to answer the prompt for the class. Then they kept it as the students moved over 2 seats. Again, 2 minutes to fulfill the prompt, then the student with the tiger threw it to another student (on the other side of the room, preferably) to give an example for the class. It was meant as practice for the placement test that students will have to take if they want to get credit for Spanish in high school, but it was just great speaking practice in general! Amber and I tried out some of the prompts ourselves :) I really enjoyed my visit!! Thank Amber!!

Well everyone, yesterday was my last day of being in charge of classes. Although I dropped Spanish 4 last week, I stuck with both Spanish 1's until the end of the chapter, which was yesterday. I always have mixed feelings about test days. They're nice because you're not leading the class, but they can be just as stressful because you have to keep your eye on them at all times to make sure no cheating is going on. The test I wrote had about 10 sections, one of which was a speaking part where they had to go in the hall with a randomly assigned partner and make plans for the weekend. I haven't listened to them yet, but here's hoping they did okay!

Today I am grading these tests, grading some compositions, and observing my CT starting Chapter 5. I wonder how the students will deal with switching teachers again? For Spanish 4, it was more of a gradual change, but because of time constraints, I just have to drop Spanish 1 cold turkey. It is nice to be in the background again, though.

Today I dropped Spanish 4 and man, it's nice to have some more time for catching up. I love Spanish 4 and I love the type of work that they get to do, but I really need to focus on finishing out Spanish 1. For example, this morning was kind of pathetic as far as lessons go. Most of it had to do with the fact that I planned too much for yesterday, so the beginning of the period was playing catch up. I wanted to do a speaking activity and work on an essay as well, but 2nd period only got so far as planning the essay. THEN, I forgot to make some kind of graphic organizer to make it easier, and I wasn't exactly sure of what I wanted in the essay... I shouldn't be making these kinds of mistakes at the end of my teaching semester! So, luckily I had time to draft up an organizer for 4th period, and my expectations are much more defined now. Unfortunately this means I have to play catch up again with 2nd period so that they can be on the right track for the assignment. This was a great example of how poor planning just makes more work for you in the long run... ugh.

Almost done with today, just hoping that 4th period goes better than it did yesterday. My last Tuesday of teaching, woo!

Oooh boy. Today was interesting because my CT was absent and we had a sub come. By having a sub come, I mean I basically locked the man in the teacher's lounge because I was not about to let my Spanish 1's know that she wasn't there. Lucky guy got paid to sit around and read a book all day, haha. I was super nervous about not having my CT to turn to if something went wrong, but after I calmed down I realized it wasn't that much different from the other days when I'm basically in the classroom by myself with the students. 4th period was nuts today, but the ones who acted up are paying for it with lunch detention...

This is my final full week teaching, and I'm letting Spanish 4 go officially on Wednesday, although I'm sure it will be mostly my CT who does the talking tomorrow. I'm relieved because now I don't have as many preps to plan for, and I've got to get through Chapter 4B with Spanish 1 this week, then up until they take their test on Tuesday.

Tomorrow, we've got a LOT of speaking practice and a the beginnings of an essay, plus some more new stuff to learn that, because of their behavior today, we didn't get time to do today. Ugh. We are all in for a crazy week...

Remind me to let you guys know how Spanish 1's cooperative learning groups went today (hint: GREAT!), but for now I have a mountain of work to do before I can even think about getting some sleep. Thank God tomorrow is Friday.

Hello world! Today started off icky, but got a lot better. I feel like the more depressed/nervous I feel in the morning, the better the day ends, or the more excited/happy I feel in the morning, the worse the day ends. So, I've come to mildly enjoy being grumpy in the mornings for that reason, haha.

Spanish 1 was learning about para + infinitives, continuing with question words, and working on stem-changing verbs again. They also had a vocabulary quiz. 2nd period was frustrating because I had 2 kids who were the biggest Negative Nancys ever. One of them, I'd go by and tell him to start working on the warm-up, and all he would say was "but I never do those!" Yeah, I know. I manage to get him to take a notebook out and he just sits there, like taking a notebook out should get me off his case. I don't think so! He also sighed and moaned through the whole quiz, then was trying to look on some other person's quiz, so I took his up. Finally I had to just send him out of the room, although upon talking to him later, he had no idea what he did wrong. Kind of impressive how someone can be so unaware of their own behavior. After he left, the whole atmosphere of the class got a lot better though, so I hope they feel prepared for their quiz on stem-changers tomorrow.

Again, 4th period was on top of their game, answering my questions relatively easily, working hard on their work, everything! If you had been there Monday, you would not have thought this was the same group of students. Tomorrow we're working on a reading in cooperative learning groups, as well as a drawing activity (trying to incorporate more learning styles and different ways of expression), so I think that should be fun :)

Spanish 4 was good. There warm-up was kind of fun, where they had to chose a topic about what they would do if... they were the president of the US and wanted to make citizens' lives better, or what they would do to prevent their child from growing up to be a criminal (we've been talking about juvenile violence). It's a good chance for them to be creative while using si clauses.

We also have a "Lab Day" every Wednesday where the students must direct themselves to complete assignments and mastery tests of grammar concepts throughout the semester. It's really quite a genius idea that my CT set up, because it's one less day you have to plan for Spanish 4, and the students have deadlines to meet with the assignments, so they're always working diligently. So, I got caught up on some grading (although there is still PILES of things to work on) and wrote some quizzes.

The time between the end of school and about 6pm always seems to fly by the fastest. I do try to leave by 6 because I'm secretly afraid that I'll get locked in the school (not that it would matter that much cuz I live there anyway). Still have some grades to finish up tonight, but I feel prepared for the lessons tomorrow. Yay!