And you thought Hilda was good!
That title is for those of you who remember my time as Hilda the Spy this summer!
For the skit I was in at soccer camp I had to wear these sunglasses as part my costume, and had to perform many tasks in them, including running through a darkened gymnasium full of children and sound equipment! Anyways, Hilda was revived, minus the sunglasses, but with all of the super spy powers! Ok well maybe not, but here's the story:
Hope's glasses broke today (and she wasn't even doing anything too strenuous, just taking off a sweater) , about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for class! She is even blinder than me, if you can believe it! Anyways, we were wondering if she would have to cancel class or something since she couldn't see! And I got the idea that she should use my glasses, since I can see passably enough to teach a class without mine. Well my glasses were better than nothing, so we decided to go ahead with the plan! It was interesting that's for sure, I couldn't really see the students that well, and even though they had all made beautiful name tags I wasn't really able to read them! But the classes went pretty well! I still have a headache though! It was really strange to go that long without wearing my glasses! But I suppose that it did allow for one quite amusing moment in the day: when I first arrived to class, some of the students got really excited about my blue eyes (which they could probably see better due to the lack of glasses) and one of them asked me (via their teacher who translated for me) if they were my "real eyes" to which, I of course responded, yes, they're the only one's I've got! Some of my kids had really interesting English names, including: Marrin, Jacod (yes, he says it with a "d" at the end), Happy, Zev, Jester, Zer, Vennis, Lancy, Branda, Bing, Petter, Timen, Gig, Sky, and Elvis. One of the girls, Yuki, is quite funny and very vocal, one of the first things she asked me today was "are you free tonight" haha! I found them to be more outgoing than the students at Yuli Jr. High where I taught yesterday, but then that whole day was just interesting...
My first class yesterday went really well, the highlight was after the students left, two of the girls came back and shyly said "teacher, you are so cute" awwwww
My second class was quite stressful though, mostly due to lack of communication... see, I was told that it was an elective conversation class and thought the students would also be using LTE (a magazine). I discovered that it is a compulsory class, and about half the students have almost no English (some couldn't even say "My name is ___, I am ___ years old, and many didn't know numbers past 10), hence not really what I would think of as a "conversation class." Also the majority of the students were extremely hesitant to speak at all (even more so than "normal" as I have observed in the other classes), the regular teacher implied that I would probably not be able to get many of them to speak. Further, she told me (though I didn't fully understand what she was trying to communicate) that many of the students have mental, learning, hearing or speech disabilities. The teacher does not plan to order LTE for this class. I found out all of this AFTER I taught the class...
So i'm quite perplexed with this situation, especially since i'm not really clear on which students have disabilities, and what they are. Hope had different issues with her second class, and so we sent a big long email to our supervisors asking to speak with them, instead they emailed us and said they would call the schools and talk to us afterward... anyways, after a lot of confusion, and probably some unnecessary conversations, we agreed that we could do what we had proposed in our emails. So I will be adapting the children's curriculum, which means more work for me, but that's ok... i really hope i can help these kids even just a little!
So one more class tomorrow, a lot of prep for our saturday morning english club, and a possible trip to Hualien for glasses (i may get new glasses too how exciting! Amy Lin told us tonight that glasses are MUCH cheaper here!)
For the skit I was in at soccer camp I had to wear these sunglasses as part my costume, and had to perform many tasks in them, including running through a darkened gymnasium full of children and sound equipment! Anyways, Hilda was revived, minus the sunglasses, but with all of the super spy powers! Ok well maybe not, but here's the story:
Hope's glasses broke today (and she wasn't even doing anything too strenuous, just taking off a sweater) , about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for class! She is even blinder than me, if you can believe it! Anyways, we were wondering if she would have to cancel class or something since she couldn't see! And I got the idea that she should use my glasses, since I can see passably enough to teach a class without mine. Well my glasses were better than nothing, so we decided to go ahead with the plan! It was interesting that's for sure, I couldn't really see the students that well, and even though they had all made beautiful name tags I wasn't really able to read them! But the classes went pretty well! I still have a headache though! It was really strange to go that long without wearing my glasses! But I suppose that it did allow for one quite amusing moment in the day: when I first arrived to class, some of the students got really excited about my blue eyes (which they could probably see better due to the lack of glasses) and one of them asked me (via their teacher who translated for me) if they were my "real eyes" to which, I of course responded, yes, they're the only one's I've got! Some of my kids had really interesting English names, including: Marrin, Jacod (yes, he says it with a "d" at the end), Happy, Zev, Jester, Zer, Vennis, Lancy, Branda, Bing, Petter, Timen, Gig, Sky, and Elvis. One of the girls, Yuki, is quite funny and very vocal, one of the first things she asked me today was "are you free tonight" haha! I found them to be more outgoing than the students at Yuli Jr. High where I taught yesterday, but then that whole day was just interesting...
My first class yesterday went really well, the highlight was after the students left, two of the girls came back and shyly said "teacher, you are so cute" awwwww
My second class was quite stressful though, mostly due to lack of communication... see, I was told that it was an elective conversation class and thought the students would also be using LTE (a magazine). I discovered that it is a compulsory class, and about half the students have almost no English (some couldn't even say "My name is ___, I am ___ years old, and many didn't know numbers past 10), hence not really what I would think of as a "conversation class." Also the majority of the students were extremely hesitant to speak at all (even more so than "normal" as I have observed in the other classes), the regular teacher implied that I would probably not be able to get many of them to speak. Further, she told me (though I didn't fully understand what she was trying to communicate) that many of the students have mental, learning, hearing or speech disabilities. The teacher does not plan to order LTE for this class. I found out all of this AFTER I taught the class...
So i'm quite perplexed with this situation, especially since i'm not really clear on which students have disabilities, and what they are. Hope had different issues with her second class, and so we sent a big long email to our supervisors asking to speak with them, instead they emailed us and said they would call the schools and talk to us afterward... anyways, after a lot of confusion, and probably some unnecessary conversations, we agreed that we could do what we had proposed in our emails. So I will be adapting the children's curriculum, which means more work for me, but that's ok... i really hope i can help these kids even just a little!
So one more class tomorrow, a lot of prep for our saturday morning english club, and a possible trip to Hualien for glasses (i may get new glasses too how exciting! Amy Lin told us tonight that glasses are MUCH cheaper here!)
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