1st week of my own class

Well, technically I took over 4th period on Friday, though I feel like they've been mine the past week anyways.

Friday had some bumps in the road because my CT left the room (hers and my decision), whereby the students decided that they were starting the semester all over and did a lot of the same behaviors they tested my CT with at the beginning - loud, obnoxious, out of their seats, asking to go to the bathroom in the middle of lessons, and just generally being rude. Luckily we did get through my lesson (and once the CT came back in things calmed down - a little). I was a little flustered after that... I'd never had them act that bad before :\ Today we're starting off class with an announcement that if you ask me to go to the bathroom in the middle of instruction, I'm going to say no, no matter how much you whine and complain about it afterward. Wait till an activity.

On the flip side, this morning I did the warm-up and homework for 2nd period and they were lovely!  I appreciate the calmness, haha.

Today was kind of a weird day for me. I was prepared to go up and teach my half of 4th period, but I was feeling reaaaaally sick (feverish and nauseous), so my mindset was kind of "get this over with and you can go take some Nyquil or something." Usually I have crazy nerves before going in front of the class, but I guess I was too preoccupied with not fainting. Anyway, I think coming in at the end of class is much worse than starting class because it's 4th period and the students are itching to leave, so they weren't that good for me today. In fact, my CT reprimanded them at the end and made them apologize for behaving inappropriately while I was trying to teach. The funny thing was, although I appreciated the apology, it didn't really phase me that they were being so bad. I guess that means I'm a little over the stage fright? We'll see.

Ohhh Spanish 1. Sometimes I love 2nd period and hate 4th period, sometimes I love 4th period and hate 2nd period. It all depends on the activities: if it's interactive and requires you to participate, 4th period is awesome; if it's studious, 2nd period is better. I think the hardest thing for me is making sure kids aren't sleeping. It's easier if they're just not on task, but when they're not being disruptive, just being lazy/sleeping, I have less motivation to mess with them. I still do, but grrrr, after so many times of talking to them about it, it's so tempting to just let them do their thing. It's not like we haven't warned them... the worst part is, most of them are repeaters. Don't you want to pass this class so you can move on? Geez.

/rant

Conociendo a los padres

First Meet the Teacher Night! Not that big of a turn out, but it was nice to see some of the parents (I could definitely see the resemblance to the child in each of them). Everyone was quite pleasant and it was nice to be able to introduce myself in person instead of simply through the letter I sent out. We talked about our expectations for the class and our experiences thus far, as well as our reasons for speaking so much Spanish (oh boy, wait til I'm on full time...) and resources that the students can use to succeed in our class. One parent seemed happy when I told her that I knew other languages and I was going to bring some of my language-learning strategies and techniques to the classroom. It really is a system! So, today was tiring but it definitely ended on a good note :)

Español 4

Ooh, it's driving me crazy when the Spanish 4 students are still talking in English. Even when explaining things amongst the group... even if you don't know all the vocab, work around it. I feel like I'm saying "español por favor..." and "no quiero oír inglés..." nonstop. Well, I feel bad because it's not yet "my" class, but they're capable of expressing themselves fairly well in Spanish, and this is their one chance a day (for most of them) to practice. Frustrating!