Second Week (10.11.2014)

On my second week, I had three hours, one with 7^th graders and two with 5^th graders because there was the commemoration of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the morning. This week, we saw the students had some difficulties adapting to the rules. Some of them didn’t do their homework.

This week, one event reminded me of one of the most important things: classroom management. So we were having an activity about “giving directions” in my 3^rd hour which is with the 5^th graders when it happened. The teacher chose a girl and then she chose a boy. The whole class started to laugh and make noise when the teacher chose the boy. Then the boy started to cry. I could guess the situation, but the teacher asked what was happening. The boy answered that his friends always mocked him as if he was in love with the girl. At that moment, the teacher wanted a complete silence and said that it was not the place and the time to talk about it. She continued the lesson and the boy stopped crying. In a minute or two, it was like nothing happened. I realized it was the best to keep calm in this sort of situations.

Before the activity, each student decided a building to write down on a paper and put them on their desks so that the classroom would be a map of a city. This was on the break so the teacher was away. Some needed help and I was there to help. Some asked translations of words, others asked pronunciations of words. I enjoyed having some time with them. As one of my previous teachers told, I guess I tasted teaching, now I can’t get enough of it.

There are still some who are having problems seeing the blackboard. As far as I saw, the teacher always uses the blackboard for only once and never cleans it. Besides, the blackboard may be too below. I would write bigger letters even if that meant cleaning and writing more than once. In other way, the students are not able to see clearly and they have to ask or go closer to blackboard.