Successful Day

Wednesday went well! It was great practice teaching by myself for the day. My throat was very sore from raising my voice so much, however. As the teachers here would say, I was "giving out" to students a lot. One thing is for sure, I have definitely improved my teaching voice and discipline methods. I really don't enjoy raising my voice at all, but I find that I have to do so with such a large number of students in one class. I was talking to my cooperating teacher today after school and telling her all about how yesterday went. I asked her if it is a reflection of something I am doing wrong or could do better if I am always having to raise my voice with the students. She said that she finds she has to do the same thing a lot when she is teaching. It is a few students that create disturbances throughout the day that sometimes set off all of the other children as well. Still, I have been trying to do other things to curb the amount of messing around and chatting that occurs during work time  besides just raising my voice. We've taken time out to read stories or sing songs together (they really love " Willoughby Wallaby Woo").  I obviously prefer doing these things to get the class' attention instead of raising my voice all of the time, but sometimes I do find that I need to get very firm with certain students. Wednesday was a good test of my ability to handle so many students at once. Earlier in the year, I am not sure how well I would have been able to handle it as my voice was not nearly loud enough and I was still struggling a bit with effectively disciplining students. But Wednesday went fairly smoothly and I am happy that I was able to get through all of the lessons that I needed to as well.

I am also really excited to teach two lessons on Thanksgiving next week! Today the sixth class teacher asked if I would do a lesson about Thanksgiving in her classroom. The sixth class is comprised of 11 and 12-year-olds, so I am really excited to be teaching the older children for a little bit next Wednesday. I also talked to my cooperating teacher about doing a Thanksgiving lesson for the junior infants so I will be doing a project with them on Thanksgiving Day. My host family and I have also talked about doing a Thanksgiving dinner but we will be doing it over Thanksgiving weekend because of everyone's busy schedules and such. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away now! That just seems crazy to me.

Well, everyone have a great weekend :)