Sevent Week (15.12.2014)

This week at my school, it was a very tiring day, I can say. 7th graders made exercises about what they “prefer”. Teacher wrote some sentences with blanks on the blackboard. Then the students wrote them down. She gave them some time to fill in the blanks. I helped them through the exercises. During the class, the students were very active but “active” here means sort of physically. Some of them kept themselves busy with other things and didn’t stop talking. The teacher told me it was almost the end of year and that was why the students were this naughty. Despite the warnings, they continued to act like that. Actually I felt desperate and I saw sometimes we need something special for the lesson to go on.


5th graders were relatively better. They made exercises about what they “like”. Teacher wrote some sentences with blanks on the blackboard. Then the students wrote them down. She gave them some time to fill in the blanks. Then the teacher continued with the exercises on the book.  With 7thgraders and again with 5th graders, the problem was some of them didn’t remember the grammar. If I were the teacher, I would put some reminders on the board, so they could have a little help. But in my case, I singled out the certain students and made them a small list with subject pronouns and verbs.


The most important thing this week was, I think, that I saw a student having difficulties in writing. He was not even able to recognise English letters like q or w. I described him the letters. It is really sad how he is in a class that is above his knowledge or learning and it is disappointing how he doesn’t get enough help. In this system, a good student stays good and a bad student stays bad and the difference between them keeps growing greatly.

Sixth Week (08.12.2014)

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Fifth Week (01.12.2014)

This week was examination week and the teacher had review with students to study the exams. Also, the schedule of the school changed. So this week I met a new class. Furthermore, the teacher had to leave on the last lesson. This was the first time I was totally alone with a class. The good thing was I didn’t have to use a lesson plan, which I didn’t have, because the teacher told me what to do. She gave me worksheets to do in the class.

In the class with these new 5^th graders, the students regarded me more as a teacher than a “brother” because I was alone with them on our first day. In the lesson, first I let them know what we were going to do while handing out the worksheets. I was afraid about the timing. I was not sure if I would do the activity very slowly or at a normal speed. I gave at least 3 minutes for each part of the worksheet. But some of them were really fast while a few of them were too slow. I gave them an extra 2 minutes. But of course the faster ones didn’t wait and skipped to the next parts. Still, we advanced step by step. Once they were done with that part, they answered. We didn’t move on until someone told the correct answer.

Most of the class was participating. It was a relief that they were interested in the lesson. Still, I needed to raise my voice because they were shouting like “Teacher! Choose me!”.  On the 5^th part of the worksheet, I checked some passive students’ papers. They were not raising their hands but writing down. Still, some had mistakes. I decided to write the correct answers on the board so they could see as well. Then I realized I wasn’t worrying about the time anymore. We continued with the last 2 activity on the sheet at a normal speed. After we were done, I asked if they had any questions. Some asked and I replied.

Unfortunately, we finished 15 minutes early. So they started to chitchat and ask me personal questions. After 5 minutes, they asked me to let them out because other classes were coming after the noon, so there wouldn’t be a chaos. And I let them out. After this lesson, I realized I could handle it but it was really difficult to have a class without planning. Planning lets you use the time effectively.