Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are my full days where I start at 9 a.m. and end at 4:10 p.m. Tuesday's I'm done at 11:30 a.m. and Thursday's I end at 3 p.m. Full days consist of teaching 6 classes, half days are 3 classes. Each class is 30 minutes long. A nice perk about Principal is they pay for your prep time (another reason I decided on this school). I have 30 minutes in the morning (9-9:30) and afternoon (3:30-4:30), and 15 minutes between each class. With that said, the most I'm ever teaching in one day is two hours and fifty minutes (the last class is only 20 minutes long). Unfortunately, we have a two hour unpaid lunch break. Although, the flip side is our lunches are free. The school has their own kitchen and prepares food for all the kids every day, so we all eat the same food. Lunch consists of rice (occasionally we have noodles), 3-4 sides, soup and we always have some kind of fruit for dessert. It's buffet type style, set up in the teachers room; the lunch is always tasty. It's nice not to have to buy lunch M-F! :)
The school provides the curriculum and structure, but I'm free to do what I want with each class. The structure I must follow goes like this. When I walk into each class the students greet me as Miss Gabriela. Oh, Miss Gabriela's here :) I stand at the front of the room and the kids are all facing me in a semicircle. The first two minute's of each class goes the exact same way. I say to the class, "Stand up" and all the students stand in front of their chair and say, "1, 2, 3, Yes Mam" and salute. I say, "Good morning (use the class's name, for example K2D)" and bow. They say, "Good morning Miss Gabriela" and also bow. I then ask the students, "What day is it today?" They respond, "Today is (Tuesday for example)." And, hold up two fingers. Each day of the week has a hand gestures that the students quickly taught me. I often ask the older kids (K3C for example) (K3 means their third year at Principal roughly age 6) "What day was yesterday?" or "What day is tomorrow?" Then, I go onto asking about the weather. I say, "What is the weather like today?" They respond, "Today is a (sunny, cloudy, rainy) day. Again, there are hand gestures for each type. Then, I usually say very good and always have everyone sit properly in their chair afterwards. After the short dialogue, class starts with a song of my choice.
I teach from 2 books. My K2 classes have 1 book and my K3 class has another. Each book is divided into units and each class spends 2 weeks on each unit. Every unit has it's own vocabulary, dialogue, chat box and phonics. In every lesson we try to cover each (vocabulary, dialogue, phonics). However, most class periods the foreign teachers doesn't get to phonics and hardly ever does chat box. During each section (vocabulary, dialogue, phonics), we play an activity and in between each section, we sing a song. So, each class should have three different activities and sing around 3-4 songs. Let me tell you we play more activities and sing more songs than I feel necessary! It becomes a little ridiculous in my opinion. I've started to almost do only 1 activity, so I can spend more time on the hard core teaching. I've come to really enjoy teaching the kids English :) The kids want the activities : / so I'm still in the process of learning a good balance.
I have three main classes I teach: K2C, K2D (all just started learning English this semester, so it has been quite a challenge so far), and K3C (the most advanced kindergarden age group). I teach each of those classes 7 times a week with 1 block time for each class (back to back periods). I also teach speech to each of my main classes as well as four additional classes (K2A, K2B, K3A, K3B). For speech, we use a fun picture book which also follows the bi-weekly schedule, but is only taught once a week. Classes begins the exact same way, stand up, good morning, what day is it, etc. And, again starts with a song. Before each unit, I prepare my own flash cards to teach the kids the target words as the vocabulary is not laid out like the curriculum books. We begin speech class by going over the vocabulary (+ an activity), then singing a song, I read the book to the class and have them repeat words/phrases (+ an activity), we sing another song followed by question and answer (+ an activity, but I hardly ever do because I'm so caught up eliciting the book). Speech class is more laid back and were able to free talk with one another. I really enjoy teaching speech class compared to textbook classes, which makes having speech 7 times a week in my teaching schedule so great!
Every Friday morning from 9-9:30 is the all school assembly. The assembly is run by the foreign teachers, so Kristin, Dino and myself. The school provides the topic for the assembly (ex. school is fun, be polite), but we are in charge of coming up with the rest! We are responsible for preparing 30 minutes of entertainment, which we then preform on stage to the school. The foreign teachers are also in charge of the 10 minute goodbye at the end of the day (4:00-4:10). The goodbye begins just like every class (good afternoon "Principal School", day of the week and weather). We say good afternoon to each of the classes, we go down the line K1A, K1B, K2A...etc. One of us will begin on the mic, good afternoon K1A, the kids repeat and bow. And, continues. We also follow the exact line up at the end (4:09) except say goodbye instead of good afternoon. We always say goodbye to the principal, Uncle Victor, and the head of the school, Angela. The middle chunk is taken up by whatever us foreign teachers want to do; we mainly sing a variety of songs and sometimes do short exercises. One of us will take the beginning, another the middle and one will do the closing; we always trade off. These two things may seem scary, but thanks to Herzl camp this past summer I feel very comfortable performing in front of large groups. Herzl camp has definitely prepared me in many ways for this job. :)
Before coming to Taiwan, I was told I would have some training, but once I arrived I quickly found out I was on my own. I did observe a few classes, but never received any formal training. Actually, I received more advice from the other two foreign teachers than I did from the school. I soon realized how fast of a learning I was. I feel I picked up teaching fairly quickly, it almost came natural to me. Tomorrow, I start my P-Classes. P-Class (stands for Primary education) begins after K-Classes (kindergarden), which are the older students that attend Principal after their primary school hours. It will be so different teaching 15 year olds. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm very excited! :)
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