Teaching!!!

I started teaching here for the first time this week. The schools here look quite different from ours. The classrooms all have doors that open into a main courtyard and there is no gym or art room or music room or anything like that. The smallest class that I have is 40 and the largest is 58 or so. I did some observing before I started teaching and their teaching technique is quite different here. As a general rule teachers write things on the board and the students memorize what is written. There is a lot of repeat after me type learning.

I decided to try some new things in my classroom such as asking "what does this mean in your own words?" (I usually get recited defintions) and group work. Doing group work in these classrooms is incredibly difficult. Firstly there is not enough room and secondly the students have never done such a thing so it is really hard for them. I try to get them to talk with a partner and then I walk around the classroom (which is also not done by teachers) and all they do is watch me walk around and talk to their classmates. A lot of my students are quite shy too so some of them just look at me and won't answer.

However, altogether we are having a good time. They love having me be there and at recess just congregate around me. I like to sing songs with them and they are always laughing even when they sing with me. I don't think they are used to seeing teachers being silly but of course that is what I do! I am excited to start teaching music next week. There are not any instruments to use here so I improvised and bought some plastic bowls and garbage cans so I will be teaching "drumming" and how to read music as well as good Christian songs. It's pretty fun and I think even if I was an awful teacher they would love me. lol. I think they appreciate that I do not have an Australian or New Zelander accent though, they find that English difficult to understand and in all honesty so do I sometimes! :)

I am going to try to put a concert on with my grade 5 and 6s for the rest of the school. We'll see how it goes, everyday is an adventure.