What do frogs eat?

I know you guys are due for another update. I’m sorry again. Here we gooooo

What do frogs eat was the title of my lesson for my open class. Bit by bit pieces of my open class came to me; like what class it was going to be, the lesson, even the day.

We don’t have open classes back home at least I don’t ever remember having it going to school. Open house yes, but not classes. An open class is when the student’s parents are invited to sit in one our classes and observe how their child is being taught. They’re given a questionnaire to fill out during the open class evaluating the class and the teachers.

So here we go- What do frogs eat? the lesson had 3 main expressions: 1. What do ____ eat? 2. ____ eat ____ 3. Be careful! yes. It was a very boring lesson. It was the food chain, the text us a basic food chain of animals however it is very possible that other animals can eat each other. But I’m not a science teacher. So we asked the kids if any other food chain connections was possible and of course they came up with other ones that weren’t in the book.

We prepared for what seemed weeks in reality it was only a few days. I had a song related to our topic, picture cards got laminated, I took every precaution for the open class.

The big day. I got to school pretty earlier than normal. So did all the other teachers. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best, literally. I was told at lunch that in addition to the parents attending our open class the vice principle, principle, headmaster and a few other teachers were also going to attend the open class.

Class started and the parents slowly came in. My co teacher welcomed them in and asked the students whose parent they were they found a seat in the back of the class and watched me like at hawk. My co teacher told me the expectations that most Korean parents had of the Guest English Teachers and that just made me more nervous.

Since this was the first period of the new lesson the main objectives of the period was the introduction of the new vocabulary and key expressions. For the students it was mainly listening to me pronounce the words: listen and repeat type of thing with is typical for a new lesson.  I did notice that when I was going over the listen and repeat portion of the vocabulary that some of the parents were repeating after me too.

It went better than I expected. My co teacher translated the comments and evaluations that the parents left behind for us. Overall it was all positive: class was interesting; very interactive; students look like they were enjoying themselves; comments like that. However one parent said that they wished that the would had been more speaking on the students behalf but it was just the first period so i didn’t take it much to heart.

two weeks later I had another open class. This time the class the ministry of education would visit our school and attend one of my classes. And I’m still on the same lesson with my 6th graders: what do frogs eat? more fun. Same thing with the open class two week prior. I was told that this open class would be more important that the other open class which my nerves got the best of me again. By first period I was told that the English class was going be the first stop that the ministry officials were going to stop by, so the first 10 minutes of class, which is just me and my co teacher talking and reviewing material, ahhhhhhhhhh why?!?

side note: I still don’t think that I’m good enough, teaching wise. I feel like I’m not improving fast enough or at all.

Turns out they came about 20 mins into our 40 min lesson and stayed for 5 maybe 10 mins tops. Good I think. I didn’t get any complaints about the lesson.

What an experience.

pictures of my lesson planning nightmare for the open classes