Teacher Tiffany

I have spent almost one whole week in the school, each of my days have been filled with new activities and adventures, as if getting used to the new schedule wasn't enough.

The schools are completely different... The students start changing classrooms for different teachers to teach different subjects at just first grade! To give you a little perspective, I am teaching English in the school, so this is an additional class like Spanish would be for our students here. Therefore, as the teacher, we see most of our younger classes just one time each week.It was a very surreal feeling sitting in class the first day and coming to the realization that I will only see these students eight or sixteen times over my stay; unfortunately, I fear will not get the opportunity to form as close of relationships with these students as previous experiences. The older classes come to class usually twice a week. Right now I see first, second, and sixth graders. There are so many differences in ability to understand and speak English between the grades and even within the classes. We see about twenty classes over the course of one week. The whole process reminds me very much of the middle school set up of classes when comparing it to the US. This is my first experience with this type of planning and implementing. It is fun to be able to teach the same content over and over again because you can alter the way that you are doing it in order to make it better. In this case, each class, even within the same grade, is very different. That being said, even though the content is the same, each class runs very differently.

I have spent this week introducing myself to each class, telling them a little bit more about myself and getting used to the environment. Here they will call teachers by the title "teacher" preceding their name. The English teachers they call by their English name, so Teacher Tiffany. My cooperating teacher did tell me when we were talking about the difference in addressing the teachers that the regular teachers are called by their chines last name rather then English first name. It has taken some getting used to the high level of interest everyone has in seeing or being around me. It has been difficult communicating with the youngest of the students. However, my cooperating teacher is very good about translating with them. The older students know a great amount of English, especially when it comes to listening; the speaking abilities vary at this age. When I was telling students about myself they had a very high level of interest and loved looking at the pictures I prepared for them. I so wish I could understand their comments they were making as I was presenting them with these images. Most of them understood what I was telling them, I loved watching their expressions in disbelief seeing things like my school, my house, and especially snow; but I just wish I could understand all of things they would say among themselves.

I am eager to start teaching more next week but am also a bit nervous. One thing that I am the most nervous about is the difference in classroom management styles as a general rule. Students are very active in the classroom, chatting a lot and moving around a lot, this is very different from most of the classrooms in the US that I am used to. However, it seems to work for them, they know what is going on, get their work done, and do not let it impact their education negatively. For an example, there are many students that are chatting or doing alternative things while the teacher is speaking, but they hardly ever miss out on the directions. This will just be something that primairly takes time for me to get used to.