First Week of Teaching!

Hello everyone!  The past week was officially my first week of teaching.  The previous week, I was merely shadowing my team members to see how everything was done.  Even with the preparation I had, I was still anxious when Monday came around.
Teaching here is like working at a camp, except it is a character English camp.  The students come in on Monday and stay until Friday.  We assess the students' English level on Monday.  Also, we introduce the students to the set up of the camp and the way we teach English.  Every day the English teachers, my team and I, have to teach large groups and small groups.  The students are split into two large groups called, Class A and Class B.  In large group, almost always two or more of us teach the class.  One teacher leads, while the other, or others, work as a teacher's aid: helping with classroom management and so forth.  For small groups, the students are split into four groups for each of the large groups.  Each teacher gets one group.  The purpose is to provide the students with the opportunity to practice speaking more English and getting more one-on-one instruction from the teacher.  As for the Taiwanese teachers, their job is to teach the students good character like obedience, good attitude, attentiveness, confidence, and so forth. On Wednesday each English teacher teaches their small group a song.  Then on Friday we have English performance, where the groups will sing the song to the rest of the large group and the Taiwanese teachers.  I taught my small group, "You Are My Sunshine," both my small groups sang amazingly and with volume.  I was a bit worried that they would not sing loud enough for everyone to hear, but they went I front of the class with confidence and did an excellent job.

You Are My Sunshine

Unfortunately afterwards,  I had to stand I front of everyone and explain how the song tied into having good character.  I have a feeling that by the end of this journey, my fear of public speaking will be almost nonexistent!  Anyway, back to Monday, I am getting distracted again.

Monday, came quickly and I would be lying if I told you I was completely at ease with starting my first teaching week.  I was nevous about not being a good English teacher, that my students would learn nothing, and that they would not have any fun.  The only thing I was not worried about was classroom management, my previous job at Northland prepared me in a way, it helped me practice patience and my "poker face." Believe it or not, when the kids misbehave it is hard not to smile because they are very funny little munchkins.  After teaching, I felt so happy!  Teaching really is not all that bad, even though it was never on my "To do list," I still enjoyed it.  Probably because I love children which makes teaching enjoyable.  On top of that, all the students in my small group were the best!  I would put a picture of them on here, but do to HTC Foundation's policy, I cannot put photos of any of the students on the internet.  

Thursday, was one of my favourite days!  After work, at about 2030, it is a tradition on the Hualien team that we, the English teachers, visit the students in their dorms.  We start on the third floor and make our way down to the first floor.  We play games with the students and then we sing them a song called Goodnight.  I really like this song because it gives us a chance to witness to the students directly, since it is after working hours.  We are able to tell them that we are Christians, and how we love them and God loves them.  The song goes "Goodnight, goodnight, we will see you in the morning, always remember that we love you, the sun so will be coming, the day will be dawning, so goodnight, goodnight, Jesus will take care of you." Then we say goodbye to the students, this week we had a touchy feely group, so they all ran to give us hugs!  On Friday, after the students so their performance, we do one of our own.  We act out a short skit with the song "This Little Light of Mine," then we sing the first verse of the song "Amazing Grace." So we are able to share what grace is, which is important because due to the culture here, grace is almost nonexistent.  Although, we were not allowed to mention the greatest gift of grace, The Lord Jesus doing on the cross for us, being able to share what grace is was very important.

I am glad that the weekend is here, because constantly being around people and teaching, drains my energy, but I am looking forward to the next week!  My team and I got together Friday evening for a Frozen movie night with hot chocolate and puppy chow popcorn!  Today, I met Mary in Yuli, and we have planned a fun packed weekend.  Maybe even a trip to the hot springs here!  Thank you all for your interest in keeping up with me, I will try to write more instead of procrastinating.