Practicum Day One

My first day at my practicum was better than I initially expected. I woke up extremely early in order to have plenty of time to dress in "appropriate attire" and of course, have my morning coffee before driving down the road to EHS. Once getting there, I was pushed through the doors by loads of students and somehow managed to walk into the doors leading straight to the office. Not knowing exactly what I was doing, I asked the attendant where and what I should do in order to make it to my class on time. Once signing in at the front desk, I maneuver my way through crowds of hormones to my newfound class.

I had no idea what to expect of my students and shadow-teacher but after meeting everyone I slowly began to relax! My shadow teacher is nothing short of the meaning "outgoing"--immediately going from introducing me to the students to having me take on my first one-on-one with one of the students she stressed having the most problems with.

This student is not in any way a problem child but just has not seemed to grow into her own yet. She speaks extremely quietly, reminding me of myself when I was younger (not high school age but still...) and had problems speaking up which I still do to this day when I am nervous. She also had problems communicating with me and myself could be to blame for this I was so nervous! For the rest of the class period we went over her history homework as I slowly worked through the questions with her that she was assigned to answer for each chapter and I believe I made some progress with her. When we first began she did not seem to quite understand her task and would simply answer the questions by copying different information from the book, as her answer to the question. When I explained that she needed to take the information and put it into her own words, as the second question came around, she said she understood me but still continued to copy. By the third question, she had managed to begin taking the information and translating it into her own words but the sentences were not making any sense grammatically. So, we began going back and I explained (or tried to!) to her the way some words should flow together and although it seemed simple to me, it did not appear simple to her. I do not know if this was due to having a stranger come in and try to teach her something she probably had not interest in so I am hoping that by the next time round we will have made even further progress.

Since this is an English as a Second Language class, the teacher does not have a set curriculum on what she teaches at least in the period that I am shadowing, so I was not able to look at any set curriculum for the class. However, when talking to my teacher we decided that I should stay for another period which is Alaska Studies in order for me to see more of a normal classroom setting. With that said, the classroom I work in is FULL of information about history. My teacher stressed that she had not taught anything regarding Alaska studies prior to this addition to the HS requirements, so she had tons and tons of books and pictures and different grammatical conjucations (English to Native words) relating to the history/culture of all sorts of ethnicities. I was amazed to see how some of the students adapted very well to English especially two students in particular whom were from an Asian background. Both of the students were in the study hall class for math and one of them at the time of my practicum was signing up for his FAFSA. I know how hard it was for me to fill out my FAFSA alone, so it was interesting to see another especially one from a different cultural background to go through the same experience.

I hope that during this next practicum I really get to see some teacher-student interaction!!