Am I too evil? (10/22)

Every Thursday, it's part of my duty in "administration intern" to collect all information from each offices, typed them, edit the files and made a complete version of "weekly report" for our office to assign to the class leader each Friday. This Thursday (10/21), the health check for freshmen was held, I happened to pass by the auditorium in the afternoon, and it was our class's turn. When they saw me, the check was about time to finish. I reminded them to offer help if necessary and left. To my surprise, 30 minutes later, I heard from the president that our students helped automatically. I typed the complement in the weekly report according to what the president said, however, I used the boldtype and underline the compliment on class Lian. The next day, the class leader was so excited to tell me that they were praised by the president and their "honorable behavior" was even reported in the weekly report. I felt happy and proud for them...but a little voice rising from the bottom of my heart...Am I too evil? :P

The first class after midterm (10/18)

Yesterday was the first class after midterm. According to my experience as a student, it can be the most suffering class, especially for those who don't do well in exams. However, surprisingly, I didn't feel the "tense atmosphere" in class Lian yesterday, it was all because of Alice's beautiful voice and interesting performance. I enjoyed the song of "My Love" and I could feel how much you love the kids when singing the songs together. At that moment, what appeared in my mind was....If only I were Alice's student as well. Though I could tell some students were depressed after getting their grades, I believe they were encouraged by your singing. Therefore, I learned that the teacher can control the atmosphere of the class, even turn a "potentially depressing" situation into a warm occasion. However, I don't think I have the wisdom to handle it at this moment, that's something I have to learn!

Conference for high school teachers (10/2)

The conference for high school English teachers was held on 2nd, Oct. Though it was on the weekend, I was glad that I spared the whole day attending it. The speech I choose was the 1st, 4th and 6th. First, teacher Ruth Yeh shared her experience of promoting computer-assisted teaching in TFG. I had to admit that I got a little distracted because it's a general introduction of the situation, and I bet Alice must have faced the same situation when trying hard to spread the notion of "computer-assisted teaching" in our school 4 or 5 years ago. But I was totally impressed by teacher Hsieh's presentation even though I was her student before. Just like everyone in the audience seat, I respect her well-organized "training" for students. In addition, she combined her class management job as a homeroom teacher with English teaching, just as what Alice did. I do admire this pattern and I believe as a teacher, I should help them in other aspects in addition to English learning. Besides, the sharing of the four new teachers was so useful, but I did feel the pressure of competition in this job. As to the last speech of teacher Ning from TFG, I was glad to know our students are members of "iwill", they can use the resource available. However, I believe it's not an easy job to spread the website to all high schools because of the ability of students and the equipment of each school. As far as I know, some young teachers feel frustrated because they can not apply the new method they learned from school to real teaching, and also, students' ability are not as good as those in CS. However, it's still a good goal and direction for English education to move to, but in my opinion, it DOES take time! So, I benefited much from the conference, thanks for holding this conference, it's has been the most impressive since I attended after becoming a student teacher.

My first experimental teaching (10/7)

I had my first experimental teaching on 7th, Oct. To be honest, I was really anxious and nervous; couldn't sleep well the night before. When I told Yu-Ming that I was going to teach and she asked me if she could come for the first time, I hesitated and suggested her to come in the future. I was afraid that I could not control myself and mess the whole class if she's watching me teaching. However, due to Alice's encouragement, I changed my mind and invited her to come to my first experimental teaching. That's right, I have to train myself to teach as if no one's observing in my class at any time because that's just how it works in the interview. Besides, I'd like to hear the advice from my peer besides my mentor. I still remember last time, when we were discussing about the order maintain in computer classroom, you reminded me that we should always have Plan B in mind and never forget the "flexibility" when teaching. Did you expect what's going to happen on that day? :P Yes, there was something wrong with my powerpoint, I didn't count the time of pause when making those powerpoint. It cause a chaos: when I was interacting with students and trying to elicit their answers from guessing the interpretation of gestures, the answers appeared "automatically"! Gee~~I was totally in a panic at that time and jumped into my Plan B. I ran through the rest of those pictures quicky and moved the second activity. Fortunately, students seemed to be really interested in activity "greeting gestures around the world". They responded and enjoyed the discussion. I don't think I perform very well on that day, just as Yu-ming said, she could tell I was annoyed with my powerpoint. To be honest, I was "pissed off"~:P I will make good use of the powerpoint next time and also make "writing on blackboard" more "student-friendly". Besides, I'd better think of some assignments for them after extension activities in case students don't pay attention in class. Though I was still nervous and found myself sweating a lot after class, I enjoyed interaction with students. I'll try harder and make better preparation next time and thanks for your encouragement and advice, Alice~ :)