5 tips for surviving Prac

When it's all over you will understand this feeling all too well!

I'm not saying I am an expert on how to survive prac or that I was particularly impressive myself. But...there are a few things I wish I knew before I began my prac so I thought I would pass them on.


  1. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
 I don't just mean write up a lesson plan and get all your resources together. I mean check that your class will be at school that day. Are there any upcoming excursions, incursions or school events that would mean they will miss your class or it will be shorter? Assume that all technology will fail every single time you step into a classroom. It's the only way to be prepared for the (hopefully) odd occasion that it does. This may require printing off some worksheets or simply having a copy you can quickly write up on the board yourself. Also show your MT your lesson plans ASAP so that you have enough time to make any necessary changes.

2. Get involved in school life
Volunteer to do extra tasks, help other teachers or even run your own club. Extra tasks could be marking or helping to organise a school event. I ran lunch time speaking practise classes during prac so have a think about how you could add something to school life for your students.

3. Learn from teachers in other subjects
Whenever you have spare time, unless you genuinely need to be preparing lessons, go and observe other teachers. From any discipline. All teachers have something to teach you, even if it's simply what not to do.

4. Work as little as possible.
Depending on how your Uni works, you will be doing a block or rolling prac. I guess for students undertaking a block prac it will be easier not to work but I must stress that a rolling prac can be just as much work. Therefore, it's best to cut down your hours if possible. If you still aren't sure whether to work or not check out my advice on "To Work or not to work".

5. Remember that no beginning teacher is perfect!
You are a student here too so don't be too hard on yourself. Also our MT may give you feedback that seems a little harsh but remember that they are doing it for your own good. If you are even stressed out about some seemingly negative feedback - I can assure you I received plenty! And I made it through :) We all have tough days when the students are feral, technology fails or our lesson simply doesn't go to plan. But you will survive!

On another note, if you have a particularly lovellllyy MT who doesn't give much feedback or tends to only give positive feedback then consider showing your lesson plans (discretely) to the Head Teacher or University Lecturer. You really are on prac to learn to be the best teacher you can be so you need constructive feedback. If all else fails, make sure you reflect on how your lessons went and how they could be improved.

For some more tips on Master Teachers check out my post on "Dealing with Master Teachers". For all the teachers out there, I would love to hear what other advice you have for Prac Students and how they can survive their placement.

:)

Specially designed to ensure maximum comfort when stapling a schadenfreude

What's the best language to learn?

I read another Blog the other day which was advocating a certain language was the best to learn. This got me thinking...what is the best language to learn?

I don't think there is a simple answer to this question if we are talking about all people in the world or even in Australia or even just NSW. It's not possible to generalise like this when we all have our own motivations, beliefs, interests and cultural backgrounds that could and should influence our decision.

One strong belief I do hold very close to my heart is, that if your family has a heritage in a country that is not an English speaking one -  then this is a great language to learn. It is a part of who you are and you should embrace it. My Grandfather came to Australia after the war in the 1940's and never spoke German with my mother. Therefore, she never taught me. But I love learning it because I know it is still a part of who I am and gives me a stronger sense of identity. So please, don't lose your language, culture and heritage.

However, if you are motivated by work or money then another language might be the go. Asian languages are very popular for this reason. In saying that if you live in the United States you might want to consider Spanish.

If you want to learn a language to travel - well learn the language of the place you are going - obviously!

If you are motivated by your partner - learn what they speak. They will be an invaluable teacher.

On that note I do still strongly advocate learning Spanish for a few simple reasons:

• It's probably the easiest language for English speakers to learn. It's a phonetic language with a relatively small alphabet.
• More people speak Spanish as their first language than English making it the 2nd most spoken in the world in terms of native speakers. Imagine all the people you could befriend!
• Latin America is the largest growing market in business. Therefore, Spanish is a growing language for business. Aka employability.
• 50 million people (more than double the population of Australia) in the USA speak Spanish. SO if you want to go there, you might need more than just English.
• It's one of the most culturally rich languages you can find. And that's not surprising considering it's the main language in over 22 countries. From the Incas in Peru, the colourful streets in La Habana or to La Tomatina in Spain there is so much to see and learn.
• There are a lot of resources available. From grammar to free music and TV shows, there is something on the web to help with your Spanish in a fun and exciting way. In comparison to German I find it ten times easier to find both teaching and personal resources for Spanish.

Macchu Picchu, Peru

La Habana, Cuba

La Tomatina, Spain

What do you guys think is the best language to learn? Or at least for you what is or would be the best? And what are your motivations? Maybe I will have inspired you to learn one today :)

My Experience: Teaching Group Interview for ESL

The exact words some of the other applicants may be using to ask this question in a few days time.

Today I had a group interview for the role of an ESL Teacher in an ESL Centre at one of the Uni's in Sydney. Before this I had never done a group interview so was a little perplexed as to what it actually was. I read a few things online and there were a two main types I saw described:

1. The Panel Interview - This sounds like there a few people from the organisation interviewing solely you or  group of candidates.
2. The Group candidate interview - In which you are asked to work with other candidates on tasks and perhaps present a demo lesson. This is what my interview was.

So you must be dying to know what we did?

Well let me start out by saying it went for 2.5 hours! But time flies when you're having fun and to be honest the whole process was pretty enjoyable despite the few butterflies I had! 

To begin with we all had 2 minutes to introduce ourselves. Surprisingly, out of the 9 of us only 2 were native English speakers. All the non-natives had ridiculously impressive credentials like Masters and post graduate studies in TESOL and a lot of experience teaching ESL. However, I was shocked by how many errors they made in English. One girl even wrote Tuseday on the board. Really. So although I was much younger and less experienced than the other applicants at least I could speak English. I also just think its weird to try and teach the native language of a country when you can't speak it properly. Sorry! I would never go to Spain and try and teach Spanish. How embarrassing for starters. And when my student enter the big wide world and make mistakes - who will they blame? Me. And rightly so. Buuuut that's not going to happen so we needn't worry!

Anyway here's the rest of the interview structure....

First task - Discuss in groups your strategies for dealing with 4 situations that could arise in the classroom. From memory they were:

• How you would deal with a disruptive student.
• How you would deal with co-teaching with a teacher who was not implementing technology to the expectations of the students and teaching plan.
• How you would deal with a student who complained about their host family/ had issues with their host family.
• I can't remember the last one! So it must have been boring haha

Second task - The dreaded DEMO LESSON!!!!! I actually felt really confident doing this. Mostly because the lady that went first was so bad. So that was nice for me. In all honesty out of all the demo lessons only 1 or 2 were OK. I suspect people didn't really plan for this or anticipate it. So if you are going to a group interview for a teaching position I would prepare at least 3 demo lessons that fulfil the following criteria:

• They can be adapted to different time frames eg you could leave some parts out if you have 5 instead of 10 minutes
• They are not boring grammar explanations that are trying to show off how much grammar you know. This results in a lot of teacher talk and doesn't showcase that you know how to include a range of things in each lessons such as group work.
• Don't try an adapt an entire lesson into a demo lesson. This is just stupid. So many people did that today and their demo lessons sucked and made them look stupid. Pick something short and sweet in which the students learn something and create something.
• GOOGLE IT! Watch some YouTube videos even from different subject areas to get ideas. The point of the demo lesson isn't to show off your knowledge of the English grammar system. Or that you can explain how to write some really complicated text type. It is not a time to show off! Rather showcase your overall skills as a teacher and presence. 

So my main tip: SHOWCASE don't SHOWOFF. You will just look stupid if you do.

And that was all. I thought it would be more of a learning experience for me but it wasn't really. Although the other teachers had a lot of experience I wasn't very impressed with them. The majority couldn't speak English and the only other native was an old man who was quite dull. Which brings me to another point, don' be over the top for the sake of getting noticed. One girl today did this and she just came across as plain cray cray.

I know this post is a little more informal but I hope it helps people out. Please post any questions or advice about your experience doing group interviews as well. We can all help each other become better teachers by sharing information!

German Teachers Resources: AlexiBexi on YouTube

I love this guy! Ich liebe ihn! And I also think most things in German sound hilarious so when AlexiBexi translates English pop music into German it's going to be a hit. He also happens to be somewhat of a comedian so the videos are always entertaining too. Click here to see AlexiBexi's songs oder Chart Songs auf Deutsch! Below is my fav.....

I have used these songs as a hook in my classes or simply as a way to advertise German to younger grades so they can see how fun it can be! And the students loved it. Learning the words to Call me maybe in German is quite addictive.

In my search for the Call me maybe video I stumbled across another great section of his called Ich mag's Lecker in which he makes different recipes. Really funny although probably too difficult for most school students. Unless they are native students doing extension.They could still be a great resource to get the students to write the recipe and learn common phrases such as Na, klar which he uses a bit as it's quite casual.  Here's the one I watched today in which AlexiBexi makes a cute little dessert and confirms my deutsche Freundin Joana's advice that there really is no word in German for fluffy by using the word "fluffy" auf Englisch!

Let me know what you guys think and of any other ideas for teaching German using YouTube or other videos!

Professional Development: Goals

Part of becoming a good teaching is developing professionally. For me as a trained language teacher that means keeping up my language skills, staying in touch with the current news and trends from Spanish and German speaking countries as well as up to date with language learning methodology. SO I've decided to post my goals on here in the hope it will make me a little more accountable for achieving them!

Goals

• Volunteer for home visits with Spanish and German speaking aged care residents. More info here: http://govolunteer.com.au/
• Watching TV from Spain and Germany. Great channels are rtve.es and daserste.de . If anyone is studying another language and knows of a good website then please comment! I chose the ones above because you can stream all the shows for free or watch live tv. There are many other channels but these seem to have a good selection of shows. I love Familia from rtve.es!
• Take the C1 exam for both German and Spanish. This goal isn't something I plan on doing immediately because I'd like to undertake a little more study as well.
• Practise writing in my languages. Keep up my penpal exchange with the girl from Germany and Blog about Tv shows or movies I'm watching.
• Join the MLTA, Spanish, German and ESL Teachers Associations. 
• Get a job actually teaching languages and take part in the Endeavour Fellowship aka a free learning exchange trip to a foreign country. Sounds like a dream come true! More info here:http://deewr.gov.au/endeavour-language-teacher-fellowship-practising-language-teacher-questions
• Maintain this blog with reflection on my teaching and posts about my involvement in any of the above points.
• Read newspapers in Spanish and German. Some available in Australia are El español and The Spanish Herald as well as Die Woche for German. You may need to find a specialist news agency or a larger one that stocks them. But they are a great cheap resource not only for yourself but your students too!

I would love to hear other language teachers thoughts on how they continue to develop professionally as well!

Casual Teaching: Day 2

Finally!!!!! I am an actual, real life teacher. The NSW Government actually allows me to educate the future of Australia....even in primary schools when I'm a qualified high school teacher.

And it's been such a nice change! I did teach primary school whilst in Spain but it was very disorganised and didn't really make the most of all the invaluable resources that they had. However, at least in the school I taught at today, it is so organised.

I had some early arrivers fill me in on the daily timetable and wrote it on the board. Something I will endeavour to do again when casual teaching! So off to a good start. First up was a spelling test, with more of the kids teaching me than I them and marking of Maths homework. So nothing too strenuous. I was beginning to think this primary thing was a piece of cake.

Then we continued work on their assessment. It was slight mayhem as all the students had completed different amounts of work and it was impossible to get everyone to the same place. How do teachers normally manage that? I provided some extension activities for students who were finished and also had some older students in the class because of PSSA Sport so I had them proof read students work which seemed to work well but overall it was just a bit noisy. In the end they all got the work finished though so I suppose that's good. It just wasn't perfect so I guess there are a few aspects I would like to work on. Giving very clear instructions to students about what they are doing and making them accountable for sticking to that. I had discussed with them what they were to do and written it up on the board. There were different options for the students depending on where they were up to but as I was marking a lot of their drafts it left those not lining up the chance to make a lot of noise. Also the students in the line waiting for their work to be marked were quite rowdy. I'm not exactly sure how to manage that. They were bored and I couldn't go any faster. Are they just like this with casual teachers?

The afternoon session was by far the worst. We had sport and it was soccer. I have no idea how to play soccer so that was probably the biggest problem. The kids were bonkers as it was last thing on a Friday and after lunch. Half didn't want to get involved and then a few students were incredibly rough and hogged the ball. On top of that was the constant dobbing about cheating. I wouldn't even have known because like I said - no idea how to play soccer! I considered doing soccer drills instead but we were sharing the oval with all the other classes and all the other teachers could see the class so I didn't want to be seen as not doing the conveyed activity.

All in all  think the main issue is still behaviour management and  the more I get to know their routine the more effective any strategies will be. I think next time I need to employ some basic strategies such as having students stand up behind their chairs if they are talking too much, using praise to influence the class and learning the students names!