Sorry for the shortage of posts this first month. I always seem to have too many words or not near enough. It’s only been in the last two weeks that I have felt like I am finding my way as a teacher. I’ve been working mainly with JHS 1 and JHS 2, which is the equivalent of 7th and 8th grade, except that in I have students ranging in age from 13 to 22. One of the biggest challenges was just figuring out where to start. Do you focus on the students that are falling behind or those that are above the average? Or should you teach to the middle? We’ve tried it all! I am still not sure what is best way but i have started giving weekly reading comprehension and vocabulary tests. Not only does it help me see where the students are but it also is a good gauge for whether my teaching approach is effective or not.
Once a month the village has a baby weighing/immunization clinic under a big tree right beside the school. For those of you that know how I feel about babies you understand why this in a definite highlight of my days here! As if cute babies weren’t enough, they are weighed from a tree limb!
Oh, in case anyone was wondering, immersion therapy works. My fear of birds has greatly diminished due to the fact that chickens roam everywhere, all the time, and are not afraid to get close to people. Although as i write this a large peacock is getting very close to me and I am fighting the urge to run away!
How many students do you have? I am wondering whether you couldn't try to do as much individualized teaching as possible? That is the only way everybody is going to learn. If you teach to only one section of the class, invariably other parts of it will not learn and will eventually either get bored, frustrated, angry, or whatever, and drop out, if there is a very big gap in the group, I see there is a huge age gap, but is the knowledge and comprehension gap equally great? I taught in a summer school project in Georgia when I was just a bit younger than you are many years ago, also without having any prior preparation or training as a teacher and had exactly the same problems. Except that I also had a lot of discipline problems to learn how to handle. It was extremely frustrating. I so wished I had known a lot more about what I was doing. Do you know any teachers who can give you good tips? Good luck and keep up the good work. Miss you and WRQC lots, Charlotta
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