The sleep during the day helped a lot, and today I went in and taught my two classes, but aikido class informed me that my lack of energy isn't a mental thing--I think my mental funk is coming from whatever's going on with the rest of my body. That's nice as far as it validates my inability to figure out what I was cranky about.
I am feeling a little unhappy with my teaching, because in some ways I feel like I've taught my kids up to what I know how to do as a teacher, and now they're ready to move past that, and I can't quite figure out how to do it. I found a way to teach vocabulary and dialogue questions that works for them, but now they're about ready for some grammar stuff, and I have no idea how to make it interactive, so they'll be able to practice and internalize it.
It's hard to do difficult things without the skills and training for it.
In the meantime, I'm going to sleep a lot.
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I'm sick too, which came as no surprise after my host sister missed four days of school with congestion, a sore throat, and an ear infection.
ReplyDeleteGrammar's the hardest thing to make interactive and fun. Allyson gave me the suggestion of having them do standing sentences. Instead of having them sit in their seats and write, give each student a paper with a word on it and make them create sentences with each other. (You can see photos of when I did that on my blog.) The students loved that activity and got really competitive. (One girl got elbowed in the face during the activity, but that class was crazy.)
One of my challenges is that it's very difficult to get my students to get up. So far there's been so much whining and delaying that I haven't wanted to try anything new with it. But time has passed, they're more used to the class now, and a little bored with doing the same activities (which are the only ones I've found that they learn with). So, we'll see.
ReplyDeleteGood luck. There's not much you can do if the students refuse to cooperate. I've had to ditch a few activities for that reason.
ReplyDeleteThe best part is when they complain that we do the same stuff all the time. They're usually surprised to hear that their behavior determines what we do.
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