Occasional Tales

Less lunch. We were supposed to have switched to our new timetable this week. After last night’s meeting, Mr V gave me my new timetable, which was new for less than 24 hours. The time of the first class has now been restored to its usual insanely early hour, but it also means that ten minutes have been lost from lunchtime, which is annoying because the actual time available starts looking quite cramped once I lop about five to ten minutes off just to get back to the office. In addition to that, I’m going to have two extra classes a week to make up for the time lost because classes are now so short. I don’t have a huge problem with that apart from the extra classes being a.) last thing on Thursday and Friday, and b.) standalone classes. Forty minutes is enough to do very little at most. I certainly don’t want pre-AL β last thing in the afternoon. It was observation day today. I thought, overall, that things went a little better, but I’d say the vegetables did nothing when...

School teachers and their games. I survived the observation intact in spite of only covering half of the objectives and letting the “activity” go on a little long. Somehow allowing lessons to be a little organic ist verboten, and being well prepared (just in case) is Bad Planning™. As I noted in a previous post, it seems puzzling to be told we have our own styles, but to have to conform to someone else’s whims. So long as the powers are sufficiently happy, I’m happy.

Watchin’ the defectives. One thing I’ve largely been spared is observations over the past few years, and when I did get observed, because I was unaware of the rules of the game, I failed miserably. But it seems that the boss is now having to deal with such matters, and to make it worse, his underboss was also present. How did the class go? Well, I didn’t get through all my aims, but I let the class grow organically. I’m sure, though, that I’m meant to get through all the aims or get censured for it. I know we have to get observed, but individual styles never seem to be taken into consideration in spite of being told that we all have our own ways of teaching. That’s bollocks as far as I can tell. We’re all meant to teach in the same way and sing from the same hymn sheet while we’re doing it. Apparently the trick this time was to ask follow-up questions, which I duly did. I’ll probably get asked how I knew any learning was taking place, but it was a vocabulary class with a...