Trying to Straighten Out Thoughts
Today was my first day at practicum. My placement school where I am a student teacher is totally not close to home at all. In fact, it's super close to my university, and there's tons of construction going on over there, and it's bothersome to drive through, but anyways. A school outside of my familiar zone means that the community of students there isn't what I'm used to either, mainly the fact that there's very little Asians. (The high school I went to had plenty of Chinese and so did the school I taught at over a year ago.) Obviously, it's not a point to complain about or anything. I'm just not used to it and will have to get used to it. No matter how multi-cultural Canada is, there will always be areas where there will be more of people from a certain cultural background.
My mentor teacher is female and seems to be a nice person. I'm guessing she's in her 40s or so. Definitely younger than my previous mentor teacher. I can't tell if I'll actually become as close as I was to my previous mentor teacher with her. At the moment, I feel like there will be a certain distance between me and her, but we'll manage to get along alright. My first mentor teacher had probably lifted the hurdle a bit too high and plus, well, I will forever like visual arts/photography more than English, so there's probably something to do with that as well.
The classes she has (and I'll be teaching later on) this semester is Gr.11 University Prep, Gr.11 College Prep, and Gr.12 College Prep. I'll be teaching a full unit to the Gr.11 U course, and help lead the two college courses' independent unit likely. Next semester will be 2 Gr.10 Academic courses, and Gr.12 Writer's Craft. I'll have to teach those courses for a full month straight (unlike currently, where I only go in once a day due to my own classes still going on), and the planning part, I'll have it a bit easy, since I'm really only planning for two courses, not three. There will be a bunch of marking though.
I told my mentor how I'm a bit nervous and wary of teaching English, so hopefully she'll be lenient and sympathetic while I get the hang of things. At least it sounds like she will be. She gave me a whole bunch of materials (damn that binder and textbook is heavy) and said I can go ahead and reuse some old lesson plans she already made, so I'm going to rely on that for a bit, while researching what I can do myself.
For now, I will be teaching Gr.11 the short stories unit. I already have some vague plans in mind, but will have to jot things down, organize and continue to discuss with the mentor teacher next week. Haven't really thought about interesting activities to do with short stories other than the usual read together and discuss points/themes in story just yet.
I may post my plans later on so I can bounce ideas off you guys, or if someone doesn't mind me talking to them in private, that'd be great as well. I don't know. I'll see.
Fandom wise. Ikemen photobook out. I'll try and resist spoilers until mine arrives probably next week, I don't know. Poster for special shows up at Teigeki. HiroSuke + Tama's names in first row and bigger than the other four after the general KisuMai group name. Juniors' listed are the same and they have a photo of the Juniors (not of KisuMai) and there are more than listed. Mainly the chibi/being pimped ones?
Still haven't bought any Marching J videos yet. I'm going to wait a bit and see. There are a few I want to watch, more than I can afford, but I'm thinking there's going be more rounds of the videos, seeing some have 1 in their descriptions, hinting at another part. I don't know if they'll take off the first round videos when they release the second round...
Not sure what else I have to say. My pile of stuff around me has not lessen, no thanks to practicum materials. //sigh//
Edit: Miyata is appearing in Waratte Ii Tomo tomorrow! Alone! First solo job for Miyacchi~
My mentor teacher is female and seems to be a nice person. I'm guessing she's in her 40s or so. Definitely younger than my previous mentor teacher. I can't tell if I'll actually become as close as I was to my previous mentor teacher with her. At the moment, I feel like there will be a certain distance between me and her, but we'll manage to get along alright. My first mentor teacher had probably lifted the hurdle a bit too high and plus, well, I will forever like visual arts/photography more than English, so there's probably something to do with that as well.
The classes she has (and I'll be teaching later on) this semester is Gr.11 University Prep, Gr.11 College Prep, and Gr.12 College Prep. I'll be teaching a full unit to the Gr.11 U course, and help lead the two college courses' independent unit likely. Next semester will be 2 Gr.10 Academic courses, and Gr.12 Writer's Craft. I'll have to teach those courses for a full month straight (unlike currently, where I only go in once a day due to my own classes still going on), and the planning part, I'll have it a bit easy, since I'm really only planning for two courses, not three. There will be a bunch of marking though.
I told my mentor how I'm a bit nervous and wary of teaching English, so hopefully she'll be lenient and sympathetic while I get the hang of things. At least it sounds like she will be. She gave me a whole bunch of materials (damn that binder and textbook is heavy) and said I can go ahead and reuse some old lesson plans she already made, so I'm going to rely on that for a bit, while researching what I can do myself.
For now, I will be teaching Gr.11 the short stories unit. I already have some vague plans in mind, but will have to jot things down, organize and continue to discuss with the mentor teacher next week. Haven't really thought about interesting activities to do with short stories other than the usual read together and discuss points/themes in story just yet.
I may post my plans later on so I can bounce ideas off you guys, or if someone doesn't mind me talking to them in private, that'd be great as well. I don't know. I'll see.
Fandom wise. Ikemen photobook out. I'll try and resist spoilers until mine arrives probably next week, I don't know. Poster for special shows up at Teigeki. HiroSuke + Tama's names in first row and bigger than the other four after the general KisuMai group name. Juniors' listed are the same and they have a photo of the Juniors (not of KisuMai) and there are more than listed. Mainly the chibi/being pimped ones?
Still haven't bought any Marching J videos yet. I'm going to wait a bit and see. There are a few I want to watch, more than I can afford, but I'm thinking there's going be more rounds of the videos, seeing some have 1 in their descriptions, hinting at another part. I don't know if they'll take off the first round videos when they release the second round...
Not sure what else I have to say. My pile of stuff around me has not lessen, no thanks to practicum materials. //sigh//
Edit: Miyata is appearing in Waratte Ii Tomo tomorrow! Alone! First solo job for Miyacchi~