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.
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