Second Year Teaching Placement: Day One

It seems as though this blog has slowly become dedicated to my teaching experiences and endeavours so that is what it shall remain. Today was my first day in a high school setting and it was quite frightening and exhilarating simultaneously. I started by heading to the school early at around 8:15 a.m and talked with the administration in the main office. Also, mind you, the day before I had the worst sleep. I don't think I actually went to sleep, it felt like an in between state of consciousness and unconsciousness. Anyway, I met the attendance lady and she was the first person I talked to there and was really nice. Then she called down my host teacher Amélie and we walked to the moderns office and she showed me around the office. Then she took me on a little tour of the school and introduced me to the principal, and all the other people in the office and everyone was so nice to me.

Next she went through this intense outline of what she was going to teach in her 3 classes for grades 9-11 and it was a lot holy moly. She showed me how to use the photocopier, and we probably went to the washroom 10 times that day. I thought that I had a bad peeing problem but my host teacher is just the same. So lucky for me, the first period was prep so I was able to catch up with all the details and info on what is happening in each class which was mostly evaluations.

In the first class that I observed, it was a Grade 10 French class and after being introduced I just stood there awkwardly smiling, then I took my seat in the back. They mostly were writing their good copies of their journal entries silently in class so there was nothing that I could really do. My host teacher gave me the novel "Le petit Nicholas" to read since that was the novel that they were using and I was so tired. When she saw me getting bored she gave me a textbook and the unit they were on to see what I wanted to teach. After that was lunch, and for lunch we had to observe students who needed to do makeup tests and assignments. In that classroom, I met Diana (pronounced Dieana) and she told me that she was an ESL teacher and guidance counsellor and she talked all about her years of experience in teaching. She was really cool and nice to talk to, she also seemed really knowledgeable and said that having French as my teachable would get me a job easily which was reassuring.

After lunch, I observed a Grade 11 French class and honestly it was essentially the same as the Grade 10 one. I was introduced, and then I headed to the back of the classroom to observe once again. This time it was less boring but I felt like I had nothing to do really since it was evaluations. For the final period, my host teacher let me go to this Grade 11 College English class and that was very eventful. The class was predominantly ESL students except for this one girl and they were a rowdy bunch. We read Macbeth and watched the film and you could just tell that these students had zero interest in learning this. But the teacher was really positive and nice and made the best of the situation anyway.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and whatever the day holds for me, I hope it's more interesting and fast-paced than today but we'll see.

Until next time!
Suzy