The kids are well behaved on the whole. Several of them are excelling in the class, and a few (the three boys) a easily distracted and need help focusing on their lessons. One of the good students, Barbie, spent the entire class period coloring on herself and her materials with magic markers and seemed for all intents and purposes to be totally distracted. However she answered every question quickly and confidently, so it was apparent to me that she was paying attention to the lesson. I made note of this to Tom and Karl, and recounted my own classroom habits when I was in high school and college; constantly doodling but always paying attention to the lesson. As long as she doesn't distract the other students with her activities, I see no reason to force her to sit in her seat and make eye contact during the course of the class.
During the break between observations on Wednesday, Karl assigned Mike and I the task of creating lesson plans for an entire unit, in order to help us learn how the lessons integrate together over the course of an entire High Flyers unit. Each Unit breaks down into four or five lessons, and each lesson builds upon the vocaulary and grammar focus of the previous lesson. Afterwards Tom had me draw up a lesson plan for a Trailblazers lesson. The TB lessons run for two hours, and depending on the level are either co-taught, with one foreign teacher for the first hour and a local teacher for the second, or taught by a single foreign teacher for the entire lesson. For both class levels, a single lesson equates to two pages in the respective books.
On Thursday I taught my Small Stars class, which focused primarily on classroom objects, i.e. book, paper, pen, pencil, glue scissors, etc. In order to keep the young students engaged in the class I find myself deviating from my pre-determined lesson plan. I think I am over-estimating the time I take for each aspect of the lesson, so when they start to lose interest in the form that the lesson is taking, I quickly think up an alternate activity to reinforce the vocabulary being taught. For example, I started out using large flashcards with images of each object, laid out on the floor. Each student was called up in turn to touch the flashcard that I asked for. After each student did this twice, I put the cards away and drew images on the whiteboard of the same vocabulary words, and allowed them to come up and touch the corresponding image there. The kids love to interact with the giant touchscreen, so I try and integrate it as much as possible.
Friday, I took part in one of the demos that are run for prospective students and their parents in the large, open "Life Club" room. Karl organized the demo while a teacher's assitant and myself helped prompt the children by participating in the activities with them. I also sat in on several Oral Placement Tests, or OPT's which are interviews for the purpose of placing prospective students in a a suitable class level. The OPT is structured around a powerpoint presentation divided into sections of vocabulary and short sentences that the students are expected to identify and read for that particular class level. Once they reach a section that includes material the student cannot understand, we have a notion of which class level they should be placed in.
Tom informed me that I was to remain at Yopindo again over the weekend because one of our foreign teachers, Fia, is leaving the school and returning to her home in South Africa for personal reasons. I'm told she is finding it difficult to itnergrate into the Chinese culture and lifestyle, and is having trouble motivating her classes. Once she leaves for home I will be taking over her classes. So rather than take notes about how she structures her classes, Tom had me sit in on each of them over the last day and a half to familiarize myself with the students and their abilities. She has classes in each age group, Small Stars, High Flyers, and Trailblazers. Most of the students are subdued, whether it is because they have a lack of confidence in their abilities, or because they are bored with the class structure remains to be seen. While the younger kids are definitely cute, I am excited to begin teaching the older students. We will see how things develop.
Tonight we are having a going away party for Zoey, who is leaving next week to return to Britian. There's going to be a wine and cheese party in their apartment on the tenth floor of our building, so there won't be an issue of negotiating with cab drivers for the trip home. It should be fun.
*Upadate*
Here are the pictures from last night's party:
Also, photo gallery has been updated. Check out some of the sites around the city!