My first Teaching Practice

This week I had my first of six teaching practices! Our instructor gave us the level we were teaching and the target language we were supposed to teach. I was assigned to P2 (which is the equivalent second graders in the states) and I was supposed to teach them 'like/likes and do not like/does not like when describing food preferences'. I had to come up with my presentation to show them how to use that language and then a practice activity (a worksheet) and then a production activity to get them to actually use the language verbally.  My class wasn't until 1:30pm but other people in my class went before me. While I was waiting I wasn't really that nervous because I felt that I had prepared enough and at that point there was nothing else I could do. However, I did start to get nervous when people in class who were teaching older kids were coming back saying that the kids had no idea what was going on. Hmmm if the 6th graders are struggling what are hell are the 2nd graders gonna be like???? When it was my turn  I went into my classroom with my director (who was observing me) and started to prepare my black board. I was still pretty calm but that changed as soon as I heard the students come in. I got super nervous and I didn't want to look at them and get them all worked up (they LOVE foreign teachers) so I just kept preparing and when I was ready I took a deep breath and turned around. The energy level that has to be used with kids that age is ridiculous. I had to be really energetic, loud, and keep that energy otherwise they would instantly start to drift.  I was immediately sweating and was highly rethinking my long sleeved outfit that i wore that day. (Side note- it was soooo hot that people were coming back soaked with sweat. It was funny until that person was me. One girl said she dripped sweat on a students paper when she was leaning over to help them. Another girl said that the observer asked her if she was ok because she was sweating so much. So yeah, it was hot.) Anyway, I started teaching the vocab (food) and they were repeating me and doing pretty well. When I moved on to the grammar portion it was a different story. I started modeling and drilling the difference between like/likes and the correct pronouns to use with the different forms. (Me:  "I like" the students repeat, "he likes" students repeat) you get the idea. Ps-this was so boring I actually felt bad for them. If I would've had to sit through that lesson I would've poked myself in the eye with my number two pencil. Anyway, I could tell they were just repeating what I was saying and weren't really getting it. It is so hard to not use other language to explain what I was trying to explain, do you know what i mean? I can't say "so for these pronouns you use the word 'like' and for these you use the word 'likes' blah blah blah" because that would mean nothing to them. So I was starting to lose confidence but obviously just kept going. I knew it was worse than I thought when I passed out the worksheet and walked around the class and NO ONE knew how to do it. At this point I was worried because if they couldn't even fill in the blanks on a worksheet how was I supposed to get them to get into groups of three and reproduce the language! Ahhh! My instructor pulled me aside and said it wasn't my fault that they weren't getting it...the language was too hard for them and we just overestimated their level. So I powered on and tried to get them into groups to use the language ("Do you like apples?" "I do like apples" "She does like apples") and it was definitely not going to happen.  I ended up just walking around and asking the students to repeat those phrases after me.  After doing that for about 10 minutes the lesson was FINALLY over. The kids were super cute and all stood up and said "Thank you teacher" and then came running up to me with their worksheets. They were also helping me take stuff off the board and everything. The icing on the cake came when I turned my back for one second to clean my board and some little girl came running up to me and started speaking in Thai and pointing. I had NO IDEA what she was saying but i followed her gaze and saw a little girl crying her eyes out in the corner.  It was so sad and I couldn't do anything because I don't speak the language! :(  The only thing I can say is that I am glad she was crying after my lesson for other reasons and not because my lesson was so awful that it brought her to tears.  We went back to our TEFL school and got debriefed on how we did, what we could improve, etc.  I ended up getting a 'B' for that teaching practice so yay for that! As horrible as I thought the lesson went and as much as I felt like I got hit by a bus afterward, it was still really rewarding. I can say without a doubt that I really liked teaching which is odd considering the failure of a lesson that I had. At least I know that I didn't make a horrible mistake by coming here! Also, I have a new found respect for teachers, and especially foreign language teachers. Sorry Mr. G for giving you such a hard time in Spanish in high school. Oops! Well anyway, one lesson down, five to go! Wish me luck!