Monday, 14 July 2014
I was almost late to class today! I just couldn’t wake up even after 4 times turning off my alarms. I felt so tired.
In the morning we had our spoken sessions with Maria and we were given task to ask our classmates on “how many times….”.
It’s interesting to know that one of my classmates never had to clean or do anything in his house because his mum does everything for him. He does not even know how to wash his clothes and for the past week, he hasn’t do any washing yet. Well… good luck for whoever marrying him in the future then.
At 10.30 AM we moved to a bigger classroom. Yay!! We also had two more new students, one from Switzerland and another one is from Denmark.
We had Amalia who taught us the grammar “Ser” and “Estar”. I don’t feel that I’m comfortable about these concepts yet.
She distributed a new book for this week. So basically we need to finish one book per week.
In the afternoon, we had a new teacher. Her name is Macarena (yes, like the song). She is nice and explained the grammar in English a bit. We did some speaking practice with her on “what A is doing..” and answering “A is….”. It was good and I like this kind of practice to emphasize the language points learnt.
After class, I felt so tired. I remembered when I was teaching, when my students said they were tired, I would ask why and wondering what made them tired. Now I realise that:
1. I am physically tired because of the exercises. Maybe I should cut down my exercise from 7 days a week to 5 days a week or something.
2. I am mentally tired of learning the new language. I always feel that I don’t do enough and not put in enough effort somehow.
As siesta is part of the “cultural” here, I had my siesta for 3 hours! When I woke up, I feel much better and went to the library to study and organise my flash cards. It took me about two hours to put in the words that I learnt today in to the flash cards app.
The library should be closed at 10.45 PM but someone was there at around 9.30 PM to closed it up. She seemed surprised to see someone actually is using the library. I told her to give me another 30 minutes then she can lock up.
I like the way the school put in the additional grammar exercises in the drawers in the library. Anyone can access these and learn more if they want to. I practice a bit more on my Ser and Estar verbs.
Learning notes:
– when I feel tired, I can’t absorb the lessons well.
– I spent too much time putting in words in to flash cards app but little time to practice them. Nevertheless, I feel accomplished once I’ve put them in. Now it’s “just” a matter using the flash cards.
Teaching notes:
– do not make any assumption that the students understand every words. Always explain what the words mean or write down on the board so they can recognise the words.
– it is important to give both oral practice after every taught subject.
Shinta Benilda 