Really good day

I think this blackberry is going to be the biggest time saving piece of equipment that I ever had. I found that I was spending a lot of time blogging and a lot of time sitting around at school waiting for my next class so I figured that I could use that time to do lesson plans, blog, or even game hehe.

Brag of the year: I was making lesson plans while I was walking to school with my new blackberry WOOHOO! It also saves me a lot of time rummaging through papers for attendance, allows me the opportunity to makes comments about the students (who has their books and who doesn't), about the class in general, and about how my lesson plans need to change or stay the same. I can also add a note whenever I sub a class or do other extra work. Man I just love this thing.

So anyway about my classes today...they really were much more enjoyable because I had my lesson plans and because I had a CLOCK!!! Teaching without one is just insanity. Fifteen minutes feels like so you basically get nothing done...sob.

My New Parade II class, made up of primary fifth and sixth graders I think, was as it should be. I think it was due to the implementation of the 5 Point Rule. Basically as each child comes into the class I write their names on the board. If I have to tell them something more than once, like sit down, be quiet, stop choking your neighbor, and they don't listen then they get one point. If they rack up 5 points then they get a trip to the office! I have found that implementing this in other classes has worked wonders as well.

My Phonics I/II class, made up of primary first through third graders, was awesome with the lesson plans and the advice from J the Evaluator. I alternated the kids from a physical activity and a quiet activity back and forth and they just seemed so much more attentive and cooperative.

My Upclose II class, made up of adults, just fell into place by the fact that I didn't have to look far for my lesson plans AND the fact that I had a clock. I think the students could see that I had it a bit more together, they were even joking around with me tonight.

The Afternoon of Not Much Better!

So I dragged myself out of bed again so I could make it to my 3:00pm SuperGoal II class that is made up of Freshman and Sophmores in High School (I'm coming down with a cold for sure). Once again, no idea what I was supposed to be doing in this class but apparently in one of previous days of mass preparation I had already made lesson plans for this class. I didn't figure it out until half way through class so they didn't do me much good.

The class started out with....wait...a bit of background info. Last class which was five days ago I had spent 30 minutes lecturing them on the need to bring their book, workbook, notebook, pencil and homework to the next class. I said it as best as I could in spanish and english at least three times. So anyway, I opened the class with, "So, who has their workbooks?". This was followed by, "I bought mine but I don't have it with me right now? (in spanish)"

Me: "Por que no? (Why not?)"
Unknown Student (cause they were all talking at once): "No reason, I just forgot it!"
Me: "Va a tu casa... (Go to your house...)". At this point about 75% of the class walked out too. O_O

I proceded to try to gain my composure with the few remaining students in the class by thanking them for bringing their workbooks. While I was looking to see who had actually done their homework there was a knock at the door from one of the school helpers, we will call him Jose. When I opened the door I saw Jose and all the kids that, basically, I had thrown out of the class. So due to the fact that Jose doesn't speak english I had no opportunity to explain to him why the kids were not in my class. All I could do is open the door and look inviting to the kids that had just left the class under the impression that I had just kicked them out. Jose did manage to tell me that La Directora wanted to talk to me after class...GREAT!!! Anyway the class was rather pleasant after I continued to lecture them a bit more.

After class once again I had to force myself not to just turn the opposite way from La Directora's office and go straight home. When I got the office La Directora asked me what had happened and I had explained to her that they were lectured about this last week, blah, blah, blah and that one student had no reason for just leaving it at home and so I told him to go home and that's when they all left. She agreed that there was definately a misunderstanding and sent me on my way.



Can I just go home and overdose on cold medicine please?

One of the Suckiest Days!

I think it started from lastnight. Every step I took closer to home I grew weaker and weaker. By the time I reached home all I did was lay down on the bed and fall asleep. I woke up a bit later to find that I had a 37.8 C/100 F temperature. I took some medicine, only God knows the name of what it was and within about an hour I felt like a new person. I did manage to stay up long enough to go to teacherease and update my attendance. After that I went right back to bed. When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I was going to be teaching but I decided that I would just wing it....wrong move. I am teaching New Parade I (this is my first term teaching it and I have never taught this series before other than subbing). This book has tapes and I have yet to buy a CD/tape player. I believe I was wearing my outfit that normally would scream, "It's the day before laundry day!!!" but in this country no one notices the difference. Anyway, when I entered the room I was thinking to myself, "Who the hell is this person in my class?, You are in the wrong room...the advanced classes aren't in here!"...then I realized who she might be...."Oh Craaaaaap, Evaluator!!!!!!!!!!!! (panic)....Wonderful -_- On a day that I lost my lesson plans so I have no idea where I left off (had I looked over my lesson plans the night before I would have known that I had lost them) and where I needed to start up the next lesson.

I thought seriously that the one hour and fifteen minute lesson would never ever ever come to an end. The funny thing is that I had recently lost or had my cell phone stolen so not having any concept of time usually makes the class fly by, not this time. I think I managed to remember something about the last class which was about five days ago so I started off by writing one word on the board and made an attempt to cue the class that I needed them to remember some of the words from the last class. To my amazement they caught on and started spewing out words like there was no tomorrow...and they were laughing...COOL, I thought. Then when I was out of words...I paused to look over the material again (sweat). I realized that the next lesson was the beginning of a new unit so there was a list of all the vocabulary words that they would be learning. Idea!!! Write them on the board, make them copy them into their notebooks and that would buy me some time to look over the next lesson. What I didn't plan for was some of the girls are fast writers and they get bored easily. I allowed them to quietly play rock, paper, scissors while the others finished copying and I would shush them down when they got too loud. Finally when they were all done copying I bought myself a bit more time by going over the words and having them listen and then repeat and then showing them what the words meant...desk (points to the desk), blue (points to something blue), etc. Then I think I took up the rest of the class with teaching them a new song in the book. I think I lengthened it by going line by line and it kinda turned into a game...then with the last 5 minutes we did Simon Says. At the end of the class I was hoping that the lady would kindly say, "Thank you!" and then kindly leave but that was not the case. She proceded to ask me if she could talk to me for a moment and I seriously thought she was just gonna lay it on me and I was going to burst into tears and end up quitting, never to go back to teaching again. Apparently this lady was on crack or something because she layed on the compliments so thick that I could have momentarily been under a delusion that I was the best teacher on God's green earth. Bringing myself back down to reality I reasoned to myself that this lady merely had the job of stroking teachers egos so that they would stay with the institution. The only slightly negative thing that she did say was that I needed to do a warm up for the first ten minutes...something that was fun yet educational...hmm...I thought I did one...but I took her advice and left the room with a bit of a skip in my step...ok so the delusion wasn't completely out of my head.

I am so not used to the holidays here...

I was on my first class of the day when another teacher comes up to me (in the middle of me ranting to my students because not one of them did the homework) we will call her Nice Teacher because I really don't know her name but she has always been so nice to me, and says, "La Directora wants to know where you were yesterday?"

Me: WHAT? Yesterday was a Holiday!?!?!
Nice Teacher: Um...no.
Me: Oh My God you ar KIDDING ME!?!?!?
Nice Teacher: Yeah cause La Directora was saying I wonder where Lotus is?
Me: Oh My God I was reading the calendar...it says there was a holiday (rumages through papers) it says it riiiight...oh my god...I thought that because there was a holiday on the Saturday class schedule and there was Holiday comining up on a Monday that they must naturally be on the same weekend (they weren't, Dominicans have holidays practically every other day). Well tell La Directora that I will come by after this class.

Anyway, the class finished and I was trying to rationalize not actually going to her office afraid that she would say well I don't care that you weren't here yesterday but can you sub for me for the rest of your life...she has a tendency to use my guilt to her advantage. After getting something to eat for breakfast I did feel more at ease going to talk to her. To my surprise she was very understanding so I thought. We were chit chatting and talking about how hard it was for me to get used to all the holidays and that I even had given the schedule to someone else to look at and they made the same mistake. Then she hits me with, "So Lotus why did you say you couldn't take a second class on Saturdays?". I JUST KNEW IT WAS COMING!!! I managed to explain to her that due to teaching from morning to night monday through friday and knowing from last term that I was teaching two saturday classes all I did when I got home on Saturday was sleep, eat, and go back to sleep and not wake up until Sunday afternoon. I told her that it was hard for me to get used to living with my boyfriend and having to take care of all the stuff we have to do at home, wash my own clothes by hand, clean the house, etc. Fortunately she understood and relented. I did manage to tell her that the one Saturday that I did sub this term that I fell in love with the class because I taught three of the same class last term and that it was very hard (yeah right) to turn down that class. Finally, the phone rang and I weaseled out of her office.

Anyway back to my class that I was teaching...I could just kill them, seriously. I wanted to choke each and every one of them minus a new student,Isael, who wasn't actually new because he was on the roster since day one but just didn't come to class. I asked him, in spanish, where he was and I'm not sure why I even did that because I didn't understand a word he said. Thursday when I gave out the homework and the project to do AT HOME, these kids (Yosihiro, Rosa, Hissa, Ingrid and Katherine) apparently forgot that HOMEWORK means to do it AT HOME, they said they understood. I explained to them that they had pages 2, 3, and 5 in their workbook. I even opened the workbook and pointed to each page and said in spanish, HOMEWORK, must have been three times and even asked them if they understood, IN SPANISH. For the project I acted out posterboard, acted out drawing the numbers, pointed in the book where the little girl was doing the same thing, acted out coloring, mentioning all the different colors, and even acted out cutting them into seperate "flashcard" type of cards...followed by "ENTIENDEN USTEDES?"...and they all nodded their cute little heads, YES.

What do I see when I come into the room?

Their notebooks open, pencils in hand, drawing numbers on a piece of paper.

They seemed to understand when I said IN ENGLISH...what are you doing?...they knew how to look guilty. I followed it with saying, "ZERO(pointing to each student)" and they understood so well then they stopped drawing and put their pencils down and closed their notebooks. When I said, "Why didn't you do your homework, TAREA?" all of a sudden I get the response, "Que? No entiendo."

At that point I didn't care if they understood me or not. My response was, "Oh don't try that with me!"

Three(Yosihiro, Hissa and Ingrid) out of the six students that were in the class have taken this class before and failed it so I wasn't about to take anything. In addition to that, the ones that have taken the class before have major attitudes(namely Hissa and Yosihiro), it's quite funny actually.

I proceded to ask them if they wanted to pass the class, in spanish. They nodded their heads yes.

I was relieved when Nice Teacher came by and peeped her head in because I told her what was going on since one of the students was her's in the last class(Yosihiro). She hit home, in all spanish, that they basically needed to do their homework or we will be calling their parents, yadda yadda yadda.

I like to see them squirm when we talk about calling their parents, mwuahahah!

Anyway, I think I finally have a settled schedule which is the following:

(By the way all these kids have a primary school and they come to the Institute that I am at just to learn English)

Mondays: New Parade I(5th, 6th, 7th graders), SuperGoal II(9th and 10th graders), Upclose I(approximately 16+)

Tuesdays: New Parade II(6th, 7th, 8th graders), Phonics I and II(1st, 2nd, 3rd graders), Upclose I(approximately 16+)

Wednesdays: New Parade I(5th, 6th, 7th graders), SuperGoal II(9th and 10th graders)

Thursdays: New Parade II(6th, 7th, 8th graders), Phonics I and II(1st, 2nd, 3rd graders), Upclose I(approximately 16+)

Fridays: New Parade I(5th, 6th, 7th graders), SuperGoal II(9th and 10th graders)

Saturdays: Phonics II(1st, 2nd, 3rd graders)

Did I mention this is only my second full term teaching?

No official schooling and no official training of any kind but...

I SPEAK ENGLISH!!! WOOHOO!

So I did nothing but update my blog today...

I suppose I'll go back to lesson planning and figuring out graceful ways of failing these students (j/k). I have really enjoyed reading some fellow teachers' blogs. No I am not looking forward to going back to class. I know this is only the second week back to class but I can't wait for the day when I know my schedule like the back of my hand and all I need to know is what I am teaching that day. Right now it's what am I teaching today, what building am I in, what time do I need to be there, what book am I teaching, do I get a break at all today, is the director going to ask me to sub any classes today, and what are the students' names again?

*prays for about three weeks to go by really fast*

I am not one to quote other people's blogs...

but this one just takes the cake and anyway I think this guy is no longer updating his blog which really is ashame.

The worst of them is the one who sits right in front of me. We'll call him Javier. He just can't stop playing with his balls. I don't honestly think he realises what he's doing, but for 75% of the class he sits there playing with them. Rubbing them, squeezing his lad, sometimes flicking at it like you used to flick bits of paper off your desk when you were in school. How he hasn't ruptured something I just don't know. The others don't seem to notice, but I think that's because they're too busy staring morosely at the pieces of paper they spend their time doodling on.

by firstconditional

and this is the follow up post

javier

It really is ashame that this guy is no longer teaching and updating his blog...

Officially changing the whole scheme or direction of my blog

Right now as it stands my blog is SUPPOSED to be about my life during my travels (right now Dominican Republic) and a little about my life as an english teacher to foreign students. I really think that my whole direction about describing my life here in Dominican Republic has become weak and has no purpose. So I think by making my life as an english teacher to foreign students the main focus and my life during my travels as the minor focus it will allow me to make better use of my blogging time and bring more of a focus into light.

Hence the change in name from Traveling Lotus to Teaching Lotus

Feeling better already...

So I was browsing through the "side links" of a blog that I had recently added to my list of "teacher's blogs" and I came across this one that within reading two posts found it to be amazingly familiar. The words and situations seemed to be coming from my own head but funny enough it wasn't my own blog HA! So anyway, this blog... the report card is definately being added and a comment had to go along with it to bring home the point that I love it!! I also found that I need to mention that chalk face's blog is where I am getting a lot of the teacher's blogs from and they are just making me happier and happier!

What is your Japanese name?

I greatly appologize to any Japanese person if this thing is totally crap!

Your Japanese Name Is...

Machiko Rokujochigusa

What's your Japanese Name?

Cool Stuff Brought to you via blog: Sprigs

Is This Freakin Funny Or What?

This was generator so I didn't know what the outcome would be!!!

You Should Learn Spanish

For you, learning a language is about career advancement and communication. Knowing Spanish will bring you tons of possiblities for jobs and travel. Bárbaro!

What Language Should You Learn?

Another Holiday

One reason why I love this country is that there are so many damn Holidays! So anyway I have no idea what they are but all I know is that I don't have to go back to class until Tuesday! WOOHOO!

Today went well...

NOT!!! I stayed up late due to over planning my lesson plans. I tend to feel overwhelmed because I feel like I have to do all of my lesson plans all of the time. So I find myself reminding myself that I don't have to make lesson plans on Monday for a class that isn't until Friday. So anyway, lastnight I went to sleep late and even though I was totally prepaired for it, I totally missed it. The class started at 8:30am and I was actually supposed to be there at 8:00am to greet the returning parents and students...but didn't manage to wake up until 10:00am, YEAH!!! I ran in there at 10:30 with the excuse that my cell phone was lost/stolen (which was true) and that I used it for my alarm clock and everything else...so I was using a laptop as my alarm clock and the power went out...which happens all the time. Anyway, she basically said that all that mattered was that I was there and would I sub for a 2:30 class? She is too damn freakin good...I swear! Of course I had to say yes. It ended up being a class that she knew I would like and I have a feeling that she was hoping I would come running back to her begging for the class. She ended up not being in her office when I came back after class, which I took to mean that she was hoping that I would keep all the materials that she lent me and end up keeping the class in the end...well I had to walk by the other building in order to go home and happened to see one of the maintenance guys standing out front and with our limited language abilities I was able to understand that the Director was in a meeting and he was able to understand that I wanted him to give her the books back. I was hoping that this would be a subliminal way of telling her that I didn't want the class but I suppose we will see next Saturday.

Yay it's Friday...

not that this means anything for me since I am once again teaching on Saturdays. I told the Director that I didn't want to work on Saturdays in the future and she literally begged me to teach at least one class and of course I agreed. My wonderful Director has managed to also change my schedule so many times that I feel like a beaten dog that has just decided to give in and take what is dealt to her. /bawi (if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it /heh). I am just going to wait until the end of the term and then I can figure out what my schedule was...yeah (>.>). Anyway, off to plan for a morning full of psychotic children WOOHOO!!! -_-.

So yeah um day two...

of sitting around doing nothing and waiting for students that weren't gonna show woohoo! >.>

Well the time was pretty good b/c I did get the chance to really do the lesson plans for the next 3 weeks in what was my hardest class last term. All these guys wanted to do was drink IN CLASS and screw around. They wonder why they failed, SERIOUSLY!

Ok so tomorrow is another day...

It really makes me laugh though!

Truth be told...I like helping people to learn a new language that they don't have the disapline to teach themselves in hopes that it will open a door for them somewhere down the road like it has for me. Yes I am still learning Japanese and I broke the news to my bf that I am going to Japan and he freaked but after calming him down I think it was more jealousy than the fact that he would miss my ass but whatever...all I can say is...I'M STILL GOING TO JAPAN...mwuahahahha!

First Day Back In Class >.<

Ok so I think that my schedule is the following...


830 Tuesday Thursday (((Pending Saturday)))
1000 ((((((((((((((((Pending)))))))))))))))))
300 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
600 Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday
730 Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday

Back to School

Ok well yeah the dreaded day, j/k, I was kinda looking forward to it. My days of eating, sleeping, gaming, ***, eating sleeping, gaming, ***, were kinda getting old lol, but yeah anyway today I had to go back to the school to hand out the grades for my students. Oh what fun -_-! It consisted of sitting around waiting for students that weren't showing up anyway!

I think the highlight of my day was watching a movie that I waited FOREVER to download! The name is Memoirs Of A Geisha! I wonder if this is a true to life depiction of a Geisha? *goes to research that*

I also took some pics yesterday of things around Santiago. I have been meaning to for a long time. I wanted to try to impart the real filth/beauty of this city. *goes to upload them to the blog*

HAPPY NEW YEAR...

FROM REMY AND MICKY!


I'll try to make it lighter as soon as possible.

View more video clips at Yashi