For the previous lesson, we worked on trying to get the children to use their 5 senses to describe objects around them. For this lesson, we decided to bring it a step further and get them to talk about the emotions of the object that they are talking about as well as their characteristics (we didn't use this phrase, broke it down to simpler terms). During planning, it actually sounded like quite good an idea, and I thought that it was already a very good change from our previous idea which was way too complicated. However, when we went down there, though we did sufficient preparations, I still felt that we were rather careless in tying up the loose ends and making sure that we knew EXACTLY what we wanted to do.
Actually, the concept of our lesson was quite straightforward, and is actually quite practical- it should have been simple enough for them to understand, yet it would be tough enough for them to feel challenged when doing it. Most of them were quite responsive and enthusiastic and tried their best to keep up with our lesson. But I felt that we were still spoon-feeding them with the information, and that they required too much prompting before they could answer. And I think some of them were still unwilling to speak up in class, though we were trying to be as friendly as possible to create a more conducive environment for free-and-easy classroom discussions.
And so because of this, we had to waste unnecessary time trying to get them to answer some of the questions, which we already had gone through and did before. Also, I think that the crux of the problem is that they are unable to do phonics, so spelling of words are mostly done by us, even though we had already helped them and prompted them quite a deal. Even so, I believe most of the words that are in the sentence are like 'given' to us in a sense. e.g. I asked what is the boy like, then they do not reply, then i have to change it such that it goes is the boy tall or short? so in a sense, I would be indirectly pointing it out to them...
It is a little worrying, especially when our next lesson is targeted at asking the kids to talk about their favorite animal, write it out and drawing it. I'm not so worried about the drawing part, but rather it is the writing that concerns me. Today, each one of us took a group of children, and as it was, it was rather tough to convey what we wanted them to write. And it was actually already quite simple because we were all teaching them to write about the same things. In fact, some of them do not really understand the rationale of writing things a certain way, because when I made a mistake unwittingly, they copied blindly. So we have to be really precise with what we write to show them.
So as for the next lesson, I am really not sure which direction in which we should head towards. I am worried and quite confused as to which direction we should be taking ... :( hopefully we could try to meet up during the weekends or something...
Oh and a last thing, I think I might have been a little hard on one of the boys today. Let's call him boy X. All the while, we knew that this boy has been rather playful and has a short attention span. But I know for a fact that this boy is actually quite good, but he just has a very bad learning attitude. He gives up before he even tries. So today, I said, "boy X, today promise me that you try ah, don't say you cannot do." he pinkie promised me. And he broke it. While I was explaining, he just refused to listen and said oh i can't do it. too tough. We were running out of time and so if he was not interested, I just chose to teach the others. Once we finished writing out all the sentences, he realized that he was way behind and tried to copy all that I wrote, but he did it all wrong! And we were already dragging the lesson 10 mins past time. So I was extremely disappointed in him and kind of said, you see, refused to listen so serves you right. Then he got really quiet and seemed kind of down. May have been the tone, but I was really upset about it. I just really hope that boy X doesn't go home to complain to his parents or because of this incident, not want to come for the rest of the classes. And I really feel bad about it...
So I'll promise not to go down that hard on him again and to try to control my temper with these kids for the remaining lessons, no matter how testing the situations may be.
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