A fun 25 minutes

I came to this meeting late. Again. I think I’ve been coming to the meetings late ever since the first meeting and I think that’s a problem. Mr. Prast’s been gracious enough to allow me into the class but really, I have to do something about this. It really doesn’t make sense, really, that I could wake up at 5.30 a.m. for my SPD class and I couldn’t get to my afternoon class on-time. This is just wrong, totally. I’ve really got to put a stop to this whole coming late business.

And coming late really influences my performance during the class, I think. It was only last week, after a good chat with Sheilla that I decided to stop holding myself back for the microteaching class. But honestly, coming late to class has been really, REALLY dampening that whole enthusiasm. I was really too busy feeling embarrassed for me to be able to fully commit my whole self into the sessions. Wonder if I’ll do better the next meeting..

Anyway, group teaching. WOW, I’ve TOTALLY not gotten used to the whole “play teacher” thing. I mean, here we are, 4 students who already (kind of) know each other, pretending to not know each other, greeting each other like strangers, “teaching” materials we know nobody’s dying to learn… whoa. It’s really, really strange.

We took turns performing for 25 minutes for each other, and I think I handled my turn pretty well. 25 minutes is equivalent to the duration of a sitcom and that’s actually not a short time. But nobody yawned or got distracted during my turn, and we actually got a lot of laughs out of it, so it’s pretty awesome. I’m still using too much English, so I think I’ve not conditioned my brain enough: I’m still looking out for authentic responses. (…and I actually did receive a lot of authentic excitement^^)

Honestly though, that’s actually a good problem, isn’t it, that I actually care whether or not my students are learning anything? But yeah, no senior high school student is ever going to understand that level of English, so... I’ll do better next time.

But really, I’d actually made a real effort to keep my English simple. Maybe it’s not simple enough? Maybe I’m just speaking too fast? You know what, I think it’ll be better if we know the actual level of a senior high student. Maybe I’ll suggest to my partners to give me stronger responses when I’m speaking at a level that high schoolers would find too difficult. I mean, really, how else would I know, right?

One member of my group felt that I wasn’t giving enough positive reinforcement, which surprised me. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty supportive teacher, so, waitaminute, not enough POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT?? Huge shock there. I think I gotta monitor myself better next time. Maybe I really haven’t been giving my students enough positive approval…

The only other problem in my group’s that two of us had similar materials, so it sort of felt like a drag listening to 50 minutes of the same thing. They did all right, I think, with the exception of one guy who I think stuck to his materials too tight. But yeah, he’ll be better in time, so no worries.

What else…. Hm…

Nope, I guess that’s it for this week’s reflection. I’ll see what happens the coming week.

God bless y’all.

Yogyakarta, 16 – 2 – 2009

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