1st teaching day

Well the first day of teaching went really well. I was so nervous about it, but when I saw the kids- they were so cute and smiley, I knew it would be okay. We taught at a k-7 government school, and there was no air conditioning. I taught a class full of 12 year olds vocabulary, reading, and speaking about the topic of zoo animals and what each animal eats. It was fun because they enjoyed my topic.

They had a very low level of knowledge of the English language, so we all had to simplify our lessons a bit. But when we walked the in classroom they were all sitting on the floor, and then they stood up in unison and said “good morning teacher.” And then they sat down again. They all had to take their shoes off at the stairs, so they were also barefoot. It was Monday too, so they were all wearing their yellow “I love the King” polo shirts, as was I.

I didn’t get even halfway through my lesson plan, but I didn’t think I would anyways. We just had to adjust to their level, as we had never met these kids before. It will be much easier when I get to have my own classroom and know my students, but for now it is just teaching practice.
I’m really exhausted because 1. It is hot out, but 2. It is mostly because our neighbors in the hotel were partying and singing really loud, playing guitar through the whole night, but moreso than that they were smoking so many cigarettes and the smoke just comes right into our room, and I couldn’t breathe, and I also didn’t want to get lung cancer over night. It was disgusting. I opened the window, but that didn’t really help either. I woke up feeling exhausted and sick.