It's Thursday evening, and I'm done teaching classes for the week.
:-)
I like my schedule.
I teach the same lesson all week long to two classes on Monday, three on Tuesday (not so great of a day), one on Wednesday and two on Thursday. Unlike any of my fellow teachers, I actually have Friday off. I should do some traveling or something one of these long weekends. For right now I plan to work on music and practice my guitar.
Most of my classes are repeats from last semester--seven of the eight, in fact. The seven old classes are students who have at least an associate's degree from another school but who wanted to learn computers to complete their bachelor's degree. My new class consists of much younger students, and their behavior shows it. Our first session together on Tuesday did not go well, and I'm wracking my brain to figure out how to make the next one smoother. Maybe I got spoiled having all older students last semester, but I'm definitely glad that most of my students are older and better behaved. My Wednesday class is terrific. Their English is far from perfect, but they have a lot of fun and nearly everyone in the class tries. Sometimes they even come up with a few jokes. As one of our British teachers says, it's more like guiding them than having to teach. I would have been really disappointed had I lost that class.
Also, in something unusual for an American mind, the students just received their grades for last semester's class this past Wednesday. We were the first exam (the week of Christmas), but as I understand it, we were one of the last grades to be posted. I've had some very concerned students come by trying to get me to change their grades or put in a good word for them with the administration. One of my petitioners couldn't even ask me his question in English; a Chinese collegue had to translate. That was something of a fatal blow to his request for a grade change or re-test since I teach his Oral English course.
Posted by at February 19, 2004 7:47 PM