Week One

Day One: Monday 15/03/2010

Today I started my placement at Sancta Maria College in Botany. Sancta Maria is a Catholic school consisting of years 7 through to 13. My first impressions of this school were that it is a very pleasant, modern school. There are only 800 students so it is completely different to my old high school.

First of all, I attended the staff meeting and was introduced to the faculty. Everyone was very welcoming and a few of the teachers came over and talked to me after the meeting as they were interested in hearing about my studies of Japanese.

Today was a good day to start on because it is the only day that Ms. Kevern (the Japanese teacher and my work based supervisor) has classes from all year levels (starting from year 8). I introduced myself to all the classes I attended in Japanese which actually quite difficult as I wasn't sure how much Japanese each class understood. But most students took an interest and asked me many questions about studying Japanese and visiting Japan. I really enjoyed talking to the students.

Other than the self introductions I basically just observed Ms. Kevern as she took her classes but did however help a year 12 student who is doing correspondence in different level classes (due to timetable clashes I assume).

Overall, I feel like I had a productive first day

Outside of school hours:

I went through a research book looking for relevant tasks that could be utilized during class time.

Day Two: Friday, 19/03/2010

Today I attended staff meeting again as well as Ms. Kevern's form class. I introduced myself to the students and helped Ms. Kevern with general housekeeping but that was about it.

Today I was able to involve myself more with the students. I worked with the four year 13 students playing a game where they had to draw a grammar structure from a box then create a sentence using that structure. I was impressed with the ability with all four of the students and that they were very courteous and willing to learn. After the game we went over the level two structures which they would have learnt last year for revision.

In one of the year 8 classes I conducted a random quiz about Japan. The students answered enthusiastically but it was quite difficult to get them to raise their hands before answering a question rather than just shouting the answer out. However, they did have quite an extensive knowledge of Japan for year 8 students.

As we had non-contact or "free" periods today I was able to create the resources I prepared earlier on in the week at home. I made a travel game for the senior students and am quite anxious to try it out.