Wednesday - Friday, January 26 - 28

I decided to post for three days at once because actually nothing unusal was happening. Ordinary lessons, some problems with my voice still occured but all in all I am getting used to talking as loud as I can. It is tiring but there is no way out. Wednesday and Thursday passed and I was a little bit scared of Friday because again students were preparing for the weekend. Fortunately, on Fridays I have those little geniuses and we worked a lot, started a new topic which was Non-defining Relative Clauses, did some practice and discussed advantages and disadvantages of working abroad. I did this with other classes too and it was quite strange to hear that a lot of students believe that our economic situation will get better and they will have a happy life here. The most funny thing that I have ever heard was that it may be, that some day, Russia will become a part of Lithuania, not vice versa.

Tuesday, January 25

On Tuesday I always have the biggest amount of lessons. 4 lessons and no idea how to handle with that. Actually, I am quite satisfied. Students are back to studies and I am glad they can concentrate on our work.
As i have already mentioned, one of my class is very calm and students are little geniuses. I had no problems with them. We worked according to my plan, we managed to cover everything and as i saw students were quite interested and for me it was a kind of motivation. I just can't stand when they are not engaged into our topic and all the answers I got are: "I do not know". Other three lessons passed without special events or something like that. We were covering our topic, doing exercises and having small discussions.

Monday, January 24

The week started and for the first time I saw my students after the weekend. They were so confused, so tired and not concentrated. I knew that it would be a tough day and I was right. Again I could not to make my students to listen to me. As I understood all of them were sharing expressions from their weekend. I did my best, I was prepared but  there was no results. They did not care and thats it. This is how my week started but still, I am trying to stay positive.

January 21, 2011

Friday, the last day in the week. I was curiuos whether children would work and listen. Actually, I did not feel any difference, children were quite hard-working and interested. We were talking about different kinds of jobs. Students were describing them by using new vocabulary. I knew that I should do listening with them too and I was a little bit nervous, I did not hear the recording before. Luckily, everything went good and I was satisfied with our work. In the end, we played the game related to our topic - The World of Work. One of students came to the blackboard and thought of some mysteriuos job. Other students had to guess by asking questions like ''Do you buy or sell something?'', ''Do you usually work outside or inside?'' and many others.
To sum up, summarising all the week, I do not feel bad about it but to say that everything was perfect is impossible. I hope that next week success will be on my side.

19th January 2011

I did not write any comments yesterday because that was a bad day. The result of that were the first tears on my face.
I have two classes. I am quite satisfied with my students but one class made me feel nervous and  diffident. Now I understand why the class management is so important. I did not expect to find myself in such a kind of situation. Students were uncontrollable, they did not hear me and I am sure they did not hear what their friend were reading or saying. Moreover, they did not pay any attention to my remarks or my requests. After the lesson I got a feedback from my supervisor. I was prepared to hear that the lesson was not good in all the ways. My supervisor adviced me to work on my voice and use some techniques in order to control my students.

Talking about today's lesson, in my opinion I was quite well prepared, I have already used my own lesson plan. It was not perfect because actually i did not managed to do everything I had planned. I am trying to do my best but it seems success is not on my side.

Impressions from the First Day - Monday, January 17, 2011

To begin with, this week started and I already have my first lessons. Last week I and my colleagues were quite successful because we were observing lessons of our supervisors and teachers of other subjects. In my opinion, it was extremely useful to observe, listen and take notes. The experience gained during those observations shaped my opinion about the gymnasium itself. It was clear from the very first day that pupils are quite motivated and sure about the future choices. English lessons made a particular impression on me. Students are free to use and operate the foreign language. I can say that I was impressed and actually, slightly surprised. Telling the truth, I did not expect to meet students whose English is alsmost perfect. Of course, there are pupils who does not use any sophisticated vocabulary but still they can talk and express their ideas. Teachers are really qualified and well-prepared. The atmosphere is friendly and it seems that there is a kind of real cooperation between the teachers and the pupils.

Talking about today's impressions, they are not so good but I am glad that I have started my real practice. I was a bit confused and of course, nervous because I was the first one. I knew the pupils from the previous lessons, so I knew they would accept me as their teacher. Unfortunatelly, I got some remarks about my voice from the very beginning of the lesson. I was speaking too silent and actually, some students did not pay any attention to me. I did not get very upset because it was the first lesson and I knew I would do my best during the other lessons. I had two more lessons and I tried to do as much as I can. To sum up, I am very thankful for my supervisor who helped me a lot before the lessons and gave me some pieces of advice after them.