Monthly Archives: March 2014

A Week Before Spring Break

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Mid-point Meeting with my SAs and FA
The mid-point meeting was quite positive. I learned a lot from my sponsor teachers’ feedbacks as well as my faculty advisor’s. I will have to focus on developing my teacher-talk and building the school community outside of the classroom. Assessment will be another area that I am still figuring it out: to incorporate as, of, for learning assessment.

School Based Team Meeting
I had a school based team meeting to talk about one of my students who was apparently failing Maths and Science. I did not really know how it worked, so I was kind of excited to participate in it. Basically, every teacher that the student has classes with will go to the meeting. The counsellor began by passing out the student’s report cards to teachers, so we had an idea of how he was doing in other classes. Then, the counsellor would ask individual teachers for comments about that student. I contributed a little by describing how he behaved in my Humanities class. I did see him in another light, which was in the ESL 3 class. He would be more active and more engaged in the activities. I guess his confidence level contributes to how he behaves in class. I am not really sure how to help him to gain more confidence in Humanities.

ESL 1/2 Level Observation
My students used the new adjectives that they learned from last class to describe their hometowns and presented it. Everyone did a good job. I was impressed by how detailed and how much effort they put into preparing for their presentations. Everyone encouraged each other; it was a supportive classroom. I had fun during this class too. I learned a lot about their hometowns and where they came from. I was also surprised by the amount of first language they spoke during class. The social contracts were working or the fact that I told them about my teacher’s observation scare them! 🙂 The class went relatively well. However, in the upcoming classes, I will have to limit the access of cell phones and my usage of filler-words, such as yes.

ESL After-school program
After class, my students asked if I passed and what did my teacher say. Haha, they were so cute like that. It was so caring and nice of them to ask though. Afterwards, I prepared a few paragraphs for them to look for potential mistakes. The process was funny because there were mistakes that they could have easily caught but they missed. Then, the class taught me a fun game that could help students with their oral skills. It was similar to The Killer, but we needed to guess who were the spies based on the descriptive sentences they told. I enjoyed that game, but some of the students were bad actors and liars. It was so obvious to spot who were the spies. 😀 Great game though!

Managing a class is HARD!

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After a week of experiencing full load, I was relieved that it was not as hard as I imagined. Day 2 was a bit hectic because I barely had any rest in between classes. However, I enjoy seeing my students every day.

Today my Humanities 8 students finished their essays. It would be exciting for me to read their thoughts. Hopefully, they successfully applied the OREO into their writing. Here I come, a stack of essays! 🙂 Rubric in left hand, and red pen in right. I am ready to go.

My ESL level 3 class got a bit better. Students were engaged with the discussion. I asked them to tell me the differences and similarities between schools in their hometowns and Vancouver. The grade 8s were stomping on the ground or moving close to me to get me pick them. It was a little bit overwhelming. I was not used to such pressure. It was hard to get the grade 8s calm down; at the same time, it was difficult to get the quieter students from other grades to speak up. I guess it would take me some time to manage the class better. I must say I need to be more aware of how the students behave while conducting the class activity. There were two grade 8 boys who were so excited that they started to sit on the desk to get my attention. It was not too dangerous, but it would not be that acceptable. Nevertheless, it was a good discussion. Students opened up to the class to talk about their own experiences, such as how they got made fun of after they made a mistake when they spoke. It was unfortunate. I shared about my experience too. I guess we could relate to one another. 🙂  It was nice to have students so willingly and openly to talk about their thoughts.

My ESL1/2 students are so adorable. Two of them offered snacks to me during class. One was a chicken spring roll, and another was a handful of chips. Good stuff! 🙂 I decided to set up some class rules with them, so they would know what I expected in class. Being a bilingual teacher could be a blessing and a curse. Once students discovered that I could speak in Chinese, they would want to converse in Chinese. Therefore, I needed to come up with a rule that everyone should speak in English except for a corner in the classroom. I hope it will work. Experiment time! I had some one-on-one time with level 1 students today. I sat with them to talk about their tasks. However, since I was so focused on helping the level 1s, I forgot about the 2s. The 2s were not on task, and I thought they would. I may have to come up with a better plan to circulate around the class to get them focus.

Detecting OREO

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O – opinion
R – reason
E – example
O – opinion

This was an acronym that I used with my Hums 8 to get them practice with their persuasion. I thought the acronym was cute, so the grade 8s might have an easier time remembering what each letter stood for.

I began the class by asking them if they were good at persuading or arguments. A few raised up their hands and nodded. I asked them if they could show the class how they persuaded their parents. They tried to demonstrate, but they could not really show us the realistic scenario. I told them I had a formula to help them be persuasive. I handed out the OREO worksheet. I explained how it could be used. Then I gave them two murder cases for them to solve. They needed to use OREO to convince me of their suspects. It was nice to see the quieter class being so loud and engaged into the discussion. They were excited to talk about the tiny details they noticed in the pictures. It was a joy for me to see them so actively participating. After the detective cases, they needed to choose a villain and convince me of the villain was actually not as evil as some of the movies or stories portrayed. They did it in pairs. I looked over all of their work and decided that we probably would not be able to move on to talking about introduction and conclusion tomorrow. They did have a brief idea on how to use the OREO as a model to shape their argument. However, I thought their reasons and examples had not met my standard yet.  As a result, I came up with another lesson plan to talk more about OREO tomorrow in preparation for their upcoming essay. I wanted them to practice more on how to write persuasively and how their examples needed to be more specific.

My 80% Started…

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I re-adjusted my lesson for my Hums 8. I wrapped up The Outsiders by talking about the themes with them. I came up with an activity that could help them think about the different themes critically. Each group chose a theme that they wanted to work with. They needed to come up with a statement about the theme. Then, each group member picked a role: they could either be a quote finder, a connector or a questioner. Each role had specific responsibility. For example, the quote finder needed to look for specific quotes from the novel to support their statement. The connector tried to relate the statement or the theme back to our lives by providing some realistic examples. The questioner came up with questions about the theme or the relation between the theme and the novel. I tried to explain the instruction as clearly as possible. I also provided them with a handout that listed out the steps and the responsibilities of each role. In this case, they could always refer back to the handout when they did not understand anything. After the groups completed the quadrant, they would go to a different group to read and add onto the other group’s quadrant. The activity went fairly well, and I think the students got a much better idea when I had some instructions on board or/and on the handouts. At the end, each group needed to present the quadrant, telling the class how the theme they chose was one of the big ideas in the novel.

I started my ESL 1/2 class today. I was excited to teach them because I felt connected to them. Their situation reminded me of my experience in the ESL program. I knew how hard it was for them to be there; therefore, I tried to make my lessons fun. At the same time, I wanted them to learn while participating in the games or activities. I felt I under-planned my first lesson because we had quite some time left after I taught. Anyways, the class started off very well. We played a simple game that helped students bond with one another. We formed a circle. Everyone was sitting down in the circle except for one person. That one person stood in the middle and told the class a statement. The statement needed to get the sitting students to relate to it. For example, if the middle person said, “everyone who has glasses”, then students who were wearing glasses needed to stand up and find another seat to sit. In that environment, students were more willing to speak. One of the quietest students participated, and she spoke in her own words. She did not even need my help to translate. I was proud of her. They had fun playing that game. After that, I asked them how did they form those statements. I told them that it did not seem like you knew each other very well because all of the statements were about appearance. I explained what appearance meant. Then, I used that as a way to get them interview one another. Basically this lesson was aimed to get them knowing about their classmates. I prepared some questions for them to interview one another. Then, each group needed to introduce their partners to the class. They were more comfortable to speak in class than I imagined. They knew much more than I expected. Therefore, the interviews and introductions went fairly quickly.

It was a good start of my full load! 🙂

Heroism

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When I was teaching the grade 8s on heroism earlier this week, I did not realize I was actually on a heroic journey until now.

The BEd program is like the threshold that I have just crossed, and the different challenges I face during my practicum are the trials that a hero will face. Let me walk you through my heroic journey so far.

1. Ordinary World
2. The Call to Adventure
I always know I want to become a teacher. I know this is God’s vision for me. Therefore, I applied for the BEd program. I decided to give it a try to see if this was really what God wanted me to do. Since I got in, I guess God was leading me onto this path that He prepared for me.

3. Refuse the Call
My lovely home. My warm bed. My after-undergrad-travelling-adventure.

I was travelling around Europe before I got into the BEd program. There was a moment I just wanted to travel around as a “teacher” (since I did have my TESL certificate, which meant I could probably land myself a job somewhere). I did try to refuse the call of going back to UBC for the BEd. My mum even convinced me to just teach without the degree. 

4. Helper
My fellow classmates, my best friends in the program, have been helping me out a lot. They encourage me to stay positive when I encounter some difficulties. Also, it is nice to be around with so many people who have the passion and desire to educate and care for the teenagers. They are helping me to get through this stressful time of the year. Of course, my family and my boyfriend also help me along the way to try to cross the threshold. They told me that I would be a great teacher, and I was meant to be one.

5. Crossing the Threshold. Entering the practicum.

6. Trials
Right now I am going through different big and small challenges.
1. I thought I lost the school key after two weeks into the practicum. Luckily, I found it in my laundry bag. I have learned to be more careful.
2. I thought it was difficult to make copies. Now I think it is the easiest thing to do on Earth.
3. This poor behaviour kid in my class starts to open up to me. He even handed in his homework a day earlier than the due date.
4. The ESL kids started to hand in their homework after I gave them the adjusted assignments. They will look for help if they do not understand.
5. 4 weeks ago, I did not know how to drive to Richmond from my home. Now I know how to do so. Indeed, I am very comfortable with the idea of myself driving alone.

I am sure there are more trials I have faced/ am going to face; however, I am not afraid. I know after I go through all these different trials, I will become a new Kelly. I will have a new role which is Miss Lui. I cannot wait to have my own classroom and decorate it the way I want.