Monday, April 19, 2004
My first week at work
Overall, my first week as a teacher wasn't all that bad. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have sent my 1st class home 20 minutes early because I didn't know what to occupy them with anymore. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken Russian in the classes where I did, since that kind of beats the purpose of my teaching them.
So far, most of the groups I taught (9 until now) were ok. I've had beginners, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced students. The beginner and pre-intermediate groups were the hardest, since they have quite a lot of trouble understanding me. Strangely enough, some of the intermediate and upper intermediate level groups are better than some advanced groups. This has to do with the students' age and the amount of years they've been studying English. I don't really understand the grading system yet.
The groups I've had so far are, of course, other people's groups and I don't know how long I'll be teaching them.
This first week I've been teaching at one end of town. I get there by one of 3 kinds of public transport: by bus, trolleybus or minibus. I'll talk about those in a different post.
This week, I'll be teaching in the same location, but next week I'll they're sending me to the city centre. Later, they'll send me to the 2 other locations, on the other side of town. Those are harder to reach by public transport, but they've promised to have a driver pick me up and drop me off.
This first week, I had 20 hours to teach. An hour has 50 minutes and every class consists of 2 hours (1h40) without a break. I usually have one or two classes in the morning and one or two in the evening. Classes often end at 9pm. Since I get home around 21:30, that doesn't leave me with much time to prepare for the next morning's classes.
To cut a long story short, I seem to like teaching. Don't know if I'm any good at it, though.
So far, most of the groups I taught (9 until now) were ok. I've had beginners, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate and advanced students. The beginner and pre-intermediate groups were the hardest, since they have quite a lot of trouble understanding me. Strangely enough, some of the intermediate and upper intermediate level groups are better than some advanced groups. This has to do with the students' age and the amount of years they've been studying English. I don't really understand the grading system yet.
The groups I've had so far are, of course, other people's groups and I don't know how long I'll be teaching them.
This first week I've been teaching at one end of town. I get there by one of 3 kinds of public transport: by bus, trolleybus or minibus. I'll talk about those in a different post.
This week, I'll be teaching in the same location, but next week I'll they're sending me to the city centre. Later, they'll send me to the 2 other locations, on the other side of town. Those are harder to reach by public transport, but they've promised to have a driver pick me up and drop me off.
This first week, I had 20 hours to teach. An hour has 50 minutes and every class consists of 2 hours (1h40) without a break. I usually have one or two classes in the morning and one or two in the evening. Classes often end at 9pm. Since I get home around 21:30, that doesn't leave me with much time to prepare for the next morning's classes.
To cut a long story short, I seem to like teaching. Don't know if I'm any good at it, though.
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