Loooong Day
Today was insanely long.
I needed to go to school early so I could do some photocopying (the copier ran out of paper) and preping for class. I took over my friend Audrey's classes when she moved last week, so I had to figure out how to give a speaking test to a class 4 times as big as my class. I had 80 minutes to give a speaking test to 15 students. I needed to explain the test, set it up, then have them ina different room one by one to talk. I did pretty good - except 2 students needed to take the test during break. One of them just couldn't manage to answer one of my questions - I actually had to give him a 0 out of 25 because he's like "I dunno." I said, "say anything! Anything is better than nothing." I guess he was okay failing. Blarg. So, because he took so long, I was late starting my next class. And I'd left the letters they'd written yesterday at school last night, so I needed to grade them today during that break. Then we had fun reviewing and playing Typhoon (a review game) - but my students were so loud that the teacher next door had to come over and tell us to be quite, which embarrassed me (especially because that teacher makes me nervous for some reason). But after that, my students laughed and started whispering in that really overdone way. It was funny. Then I finished class and had the test printed for my next class, (and asked about health insurance) so that I could write a review for them during my lunch break, since I'd forgotten to do that, but then I ran into Yannik, a student from Africa, who is looking for a job and wanted some help. I showed him craigslist, then he asked me to print something, which I needed to do at lunch. I finally got away, only to run into Yuka on my way out. Yuka is one of my students, who had asked me last week about how to get gas in a car (she's from Japan where most of the stations are full service). I had promised her I'd take her to Arcco, so we went and I showed her what to do. She dropped me off at my car, then I drove3 home, made lunch and ate while I went through the review I'd written for the same class two months ago, which luckily was okay. I added a few questions, printed the thing for Yannik, then headed back to work. I went to make copies for the review, then the copier broke and I had to fix it. Then only 3 of 8 students came to class, which was too bad, because I have a really good review and the test is really hard. Ah, well. We played typhoon in that class too. Then I had my other speaking test, which went really well. I let my students leave 10 mins early, but stayed to talk to one. Then Joanna (a fellow teacher and my friend) came over to ask me about a student's grade, and then we talked, then another student wanted my blessing to skip a level, and I tried to talk her out of it. I suceeded when Yuki (a former student) agreed with me - then I told Yuki he "had my back" and then I had to explain what I meant by that. Then I turned my books in to the front desk, then walked Joanna to her car and talked with her for a bit, grabbed the other books from my car (which Audrey had passed to me from one of her tutoring jobs), and went back inside. I checked all those books in and out again, then had to talk to Sophia about one of the questions on my writing final, which had 2 possible answers, though the computer said that only one was right. Then I grabbed my books and went home.
And that was my work day. The real day isn't over yet.
I needed to go to school early so I could do some photocopying (the copier ran out of paper) and preping for class. I took over my friend Audrey's classes when she moved last week, so I had to figure out how to give a speaking test to a class 4 times as big as my class. I had 80 minutes to give a speaking test to 15 students. I needed to explain the test, set it up, then have them ina different room one by one to talk. I did pretty good - except 2 students needed to take the test during break. One of them just couldn't manage to answer one of my questions - I actually had to give him a 0 out of 25 because he's like "I dunno." I said, "say anything! Anything is better than nothing." I guess he was okay failing. Blarg. So, because he took so long, I was late starting my next class. And I'd left the letters they'd written yesterday at school last night, so I needed to grade them today during that break. Then we had fun reviewing and playing Typhoon (a review game) - but my students were so loud that the teacher next door had to come over and tell us to be quite, which embarrassed me (especially because that teacher makes me nervous for some reason). But after that, my students laughed and started whispering in that really overdone way. It was funny. Then I finished class and had the test printed for my next class, (and asked about health insurance) so that I could write a review for them during my lunch break, since I'd forgotten to do that, but then I ran into Yannik, a student from Africa, who is looking for a job and wanted some help. I showed him craigslist, then he asked me to print something, which I needed to do at lunch. I finally got away, only to run into Yuka on my way out. Yuka is one of my students, who had asked me last week about how to get gas in a car (she's from Japan where most of the stations are full service). I had promised her I'd take her to Arcco, so we went and I showed her what to do. She dropped me off at my car, then I drove3 home, made lunch and ate while I went through the review I'd written for the same class two months ago, which luckily was okay. I added a few questions, printed the thing for Yannik, then headed back to work. I went to make copies for the review, then the copier broke and I had to fix it. Then only 3 of 8 students came to class, which was too bad, because I have a really good review and the test is really hard. Ah, well. We played typhoon in that class too. Then I had my other speaking test, which went really well. I let my students leave 10 mins early, but stayed to talk to one. Then Joanna (a fellow teacher and my friend) came over to ask me about a student's grade, and then we talked, then another student wanted my blessing to skip a level, and I tried to talk her out of it. I suceeded when Yuki (a former student) agreed with me - then I told Yuki he "had my back" and then I had to explain what I meant by that. Then I turned my books in to the front desk, then walked Joanna to her car and talked with her for a bit, grabbed the other books from my car (which Audrey had passed to me from one of her tutoring jobs), and went back inside. I checked all those books in and out again, then had to talk to Sophia about one of the questions on my writing final, which had 2 possible answers, though the computer said that only one was right. Then I grabbed my books and went home.
And that was my work day. The real day isn't over yet.