Week Ten

31/05/08

Today I decided to work towards my aim of improving my social skills because I feel this is the area where I haven't improved that much. So I decided to talk with some of the other teachers around me in the staff room at lunch time. I couldn't relate all that much because they were mostly either talking about their children, husbands or students but it still made lunch time a lot more interesting than usual. There is one teacher who I have talked to heaps during my placement though because she used to teach at my old high school and she was my favourite teacher.

04/05/08

Today was my last day. I was hoping to say something at staff meeting to thank everyone for letting me do my placement there but Amara was late and I was too nervous to just stand up and say something by myself (also you're not really allowed, you have to write your name on the list prior to the meeting)

Today was a little disappointing because I thought my last day would be a little more eventful. We had a shared lunch but it wasn't really well prepared so there were a lot of students in the class who've I've never met before because they didn't wanna stay outside in the cold. Most of lunch time was the students who went to Japan showing photos of their trip again.

However, after school I was talking to a few girls outside of class as I was waiting for Amara and I told them that it was my last day. They wanted to have a group hug which I thought was really cute and really really nice =)

After school, I tried to sort out as much as possible. But as there are a lot of tasks that I haven't completed yet I promised Amara I would come back in after I've finished exams to sort everything out. I was actually quite sad to leave Sancta Maria but at the same time extremely relieved because I can focus on studying now.

Week Nine

24/05/08

This being my second to last week I thought it would a good idea to get in as much class time as possible. However it is also important to complete the resources I've started so I am not leaving Amara with extra work to do. I'm still feeling a little sick but I don't have a kidney infection any more so I'm finding this week less stressful than last week.

I helped the year 12 students with translation work again. They confided in me saying that they're worrying about exams because they don't feel like they've learnt enough. I tried to give them some good advice and they were really grateful, they even told me they would be sad when I left. I felt like i have had a good impact on them and it makes me feel like the time I've been spending at Sancta Maria College has been worthwhile.

I also worked with year 13 students again and this time had no negative encounters.

I have been trying to get a copy of the interviews from Amara to include in my portfolio! =)

28/05/08

Amara and i were talking about my future career options today and the more I think about it the more I think that I want to apply for the JET programme when applications open this year. I think JET will be a good opportunity for me to utilize the skills I have developed during my placement as well as improving my Japanese so that when I return to NZ I will have a better chance at obtaining a good job. Plus I really don't want everything I've learnt over the years to be forgotten.

Week Eight

17/05/08

Today I was able to get more classroom time which I am happy about. I helped the year 12s with their translation work. I feel I would get a lot more done with them if they didn’t have to write down their translations into their book. I asked Amara if because I’m here they could take advantage of their time by doing it orally as opposed to writing the English translations into their book. However, she said no. I kinda don’t see the point in writing the English into their books because English is not the language they’re learning and they can’t even take the books home anyway as they’re kept at school. Despite this, the year 12s were still happy to have my help.

I also attended a year 9 class today, which is one of the few classes with other 30 pupils. Amara left me alone to conduct a listening exercise with the students which seemed easy enough as all I was really required to do was play a CD to them. But when I wanted to ask them if they wanted to hear the question for the second time I couldn’t speak loud enough for everyone to hear. I had to ask a girl sitting near me to get their attention. I found this a little embarrassing.

21/05/08

Today I was sick so I had to go home early. I actually had a medical certificate which stated that I could have the day off but I was scared of disappointing the students so I went in anyway. I probably should’ve just stayed home…..

Week Seven

10/05/2010

Today I had my first "difficult" encounter with a student. It was just minor however. One of the students asked me if I was cold and I said yes. The student that I've noticed to have attitude problems commented that it was because I was wearing "fake leather" which is not something that I would usually get offended by but I found it was uncalled for. The rest of the period I worked with the year 13 students, him being one of them, and he was constantly complaining about how bored he was. I tried not to encourage him by paying too much attention to him so I kept the period quite light hearted as I talked with them as well as helped them with their work. However, I did find it difficult as I was still annoyed about the comment he made earlier.

14/05/2010

Today was another day spent in the office making resources. This time it was a lesson outline for the year 9 students. I was basically copying learning outcomes from the NZQA website and transferring them into MS Word then adding more examples and translations. This was another task I found quite tedious. I hate wasting my time doing tasks that Amara is so certain have to be done but in my opinion there are better ways to do them...

Week Six

03/05/2010

Today was another productive day. Mostly I assisted Amara with technical things so that she could show the year 9 classes their self introduction assessments that were recorded earlier.

I asked Amara if instead of trying to make resources from the books that they have at Sancta Maria if I could instead make one myself from scratch as I didn't find any of the ones they have very useful or relevent. She (kinda reluctantly) agreed.
The resource had to be focussed of people descriptions so I created 5 short descriptions of celebrities and matching picture cards. (I'll upload the file). Ill copy them onto card and cut them up next time. I'm really happy with how they turned out actually and so was Amara.

07/05/2010

Today was a little disappointing. Amara had printed out about 50 copies of a card matching game similar to the one I had created but straight out of the resource book. She asked me to cut them up for the students to use. I don't really know why she printed out that many copies considering it is an activity she wishes to use with the year 10 students and there are less than 10 students in the class. I'm feeling a little frustrated because I'm not having much say in what I do.

Week Five

26/04/2010

Today I continued to mark exercise books. I am getting a little frustrated because I am spending a lot of time in the office and not much in the classroom. I would like more chances to improve on my leadership skills because I don't feel like I've improved very much in this area yet. Also my Japanese hasn't improved but I have noticed that I am finding the classes incredibly easy (obviously). The kids have actually been saying my Japanese is better than the teacher's.... I noticed they don't really show much respect towards her =(

30/04/08

I felt like today was a really productive and satisfactory day.

Last week I created a work sheet for the Year 10 students where I asked them questions about Japan (if they had gone on the exchange) or their holiday. Today I gave them the worksheet and gave them some time to work on the answers. A few of the kids were very enthusiastic and asked me for help in creating complex sentences so I got to work on my leadership skills taking control of the class. This was good because thus far Amara hasn't given me much opportunity to do this before. After they wrote their answers I then recorded them in an interview style. I was more confident in conducting this than before but that may have been because I was able to speak from behind the camera.
Overall, this was a really successful class and I'm proud that I was able to take control of the lesson by myself.

Week Four

19/04/2010

Today was the first day of term two at Sancta Maria College and it was also the first time I met with Amara since she came back from Japan (she came back on Tuesday).

I attended staff meeting as usual. Today was a particularly hard day as it was FREEZING and raining. Plus it sounds silly but I didn't wear heels today so my pants were way too long on me and were dragging on the ground so they got soaking from the rain.

After staff meeting there was a senior celebrity (years 11, 12 and 13). At the assembly one of the deans reinstated the standards of dress at the school and it amazed me how strict they are on uniform.

Today we had four teaching periods. The first was year 8s and they were the only class I haven't met before. I've found the younger classes harder to teach as the students are either shy or stubborn and don't really want to talk to me.

The year 9 class next was good as there are a few students in that class who are really enthusiastic about Japanese and its good to see that in kids that age. I basically helped with hiragana this period. I'm hoping to organize some activities to do with the year 9 students as I think they would really appreciate it.

A student from the year 11/12/13 class had just come back from Japan so for most of the period she talked about her experiences.

During the free period I photocopied an activity from a resource book onto card and made them into an activity I can do with the younger students. I also made five sets of miniature flash cards for the year 10 students. I am yet to complete these though.

The last class of the day was the year 10s. A few of the students had been to Japan so they each read an entry from their reflective journal. It was interesting to listen to.......

However, I am finding that not much gets done during the periods I observe/ aide in... I think that we were made to learn a lot more when I was in high school (which I am grateful for)

After school I marked a test the year 10s did on katakana and sorted some things out for Amara

23/04/2010

Today I marked the year 9 student's books basically all day.

I'm quite pleased with myself in terms of my aims so far. For example, I have not been late one day and have been arriving long before 8am. However, I am finding this more and more difficult as because of traffic I either have to leave at around 7.20am and arrive there as early as 7.35 or if I leave even 5 - 10 minutes later I will be late. I have been getting a bit slack with getting up early in the morning however as I'm not a morning person and its getting increasingly cold.

As for my other aims, I'm yet to really see any improvement in my Japanese speaking probably because I am unable to have a challenging conversation because there isn't anybody with an advanced ability in Japanese. However, I have been revising some basic structures that I had forgotten. With my teaching and social skills, I am feeling improvement but definately no where near the level I would like to be. Unfortunately today I didn't get a chance to work on these aims.