So, in the end, my evaluation was along the lines of, "um . . . so, I don't really have any advice to give you because, really, you're doing everything right."
Sweet.
Benni-sensei apparently had no concept of an "observation," because she generally acted like the guy was there to nitpick the school to death. Whenever he was around, she found an excuse to not be in the same room. And she kept asking my why I needed someone to come and watch me. I think she was more bothered by it than I was, because I was just "whatever." It had to be done. On the plus side, she and Hitomi-san could NOT stop talking about my complete and utter awesomeness. Seriously, it was almost embarrassing. But nice to hear. I really like my co-workers - they're not always the most reliable people, but they mean well. We get along, and that's important.
All in all, a pretty good day, made even better by the knowledge that I won't have any kids' classes the week of the 21st. After the Christmas lesson, I say goodbye to the kids until January.
Not that I have a major problem with any of my kids . . . okay, not the older ones. But, I swear, one day, I'm going to take my little five-year old terrors and plant them in separate corners with their noses to the wall for the entire class. Just ONCE, I'd really appreciate it if they didn't act like they were just released from the bowels of hell. I am little more than a babysitter in this class, and I've pretty much adopted the same attitude with them as I did with my ninth-graders: if you sit down and don't gad about the room, I'll be happy. These boys have no concept of keeping their foul, vile, germ-ridden hands to themselves. I have to hide my whiteboard markers, and lately I've been locking my door with the hook latch because one of the little darlings went in and started drawing on the board with a highlighter. Brat. I can't wait until he gets into school and gets some manners pounded into him. I like him better when he's just woken up from a nap and he's practically comatose. He doesn't do any work, but at least he's not shrieking at the top of his lungs.
Alright, speaking of children, here's my mini-rant about my kids' classes. First, what the hell is up with organizing them by age? I have an 8y/o girl who is at a higher level than a 12y/o boy, but she's in the low class and he's in the high class? Okay . . . figure that one out.
Second, the book for the 3-5 y/o class is a piece of crap. It's organized oddly, the dialogue is funky and generally not easy for the students, and its teacher's guide is mostly useless. The book assumes that you have a full class and therefore need to spend a lot of time making sure that each child knows what hopscotch is. It also seems to be under the misapprehension of believing that toddlers have a long-enough attention span to be interested in listening to some creepy voices on a cd. My boys don't have that capability. And they're not stupid, so they get the idea of the lesson pretty quick. And if I'm getting bored of making them run around in circles to get to the corner with the correct picture, then they are too. Wait, I take that back, I never get tired of watching them run around in circles and collapse in an exhausted heap on the floor. It keeps them quiet for a few fleeting seconds.
The older kids' books are actually not so bad. The phonics are straightforward and advance at a good pace. The conversation is mostly natural, and the vocabulary is stuff that they like and should know. Honestly, I like my kids (and thus did sara-sensei become a pod person). They're usually pretty good sports about things, and they do try really hard. They all do really well with phonics and listening, but speaking is very weak for them. The only thing I can figure is that the previous teacher didn't have them doing a lot of comprehension work - just listening and repeating. I only have 2-3 kids who can respond to questions with full sentences, when about 8 of them should be able to do that. They know the words, but they don't know how to use the language. So, that's becoming a big focus for me - getting them to create simple sentences such as "I like" or "I don't like." Because they can answer if I ask "do you like?" and that means they can use the full sentence. Something to work on in the future.
But yeah, I kids' classes are mostly fun. They're lively, alert, and willing. Who knew it was possible that kids could be so cool?
Of course, none of them are teenagers yet, and that could be a whole different kettle of fish in the coming year.
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