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Good experiences during school practical

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Hi everyone Good experiences, can be good lessons, funny moments and secret moments shared between a teacher and a student. Good lessons to me are when learners stop me and tell me, please go back or your are too fast. It makes me feel like I am doing something right. Because they care, listen and are self-regulating. These are the things we want to teach our learners, we want them to become the best people that they could be.  Funny moments can be when I make a lame joke and the class laughs for me with me. Something that also happens every day, is when I make a mistake. It can be using the wrong term or calculation errors. I handle this in two ways, I either say oops I was testing to see if you were paying attention (assessing if the class understands and pay attention) or I just say I was wrong, this shows the class that you are human and you make mistakes too. Secret moments were when a learners is in need of someone to listen them or pick up a pen or pencil from...
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Bad experiences during my teaching practical

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Hi everyone Today, I want to share some bad experiences, don't worry the good ones will follow. It is just realistic to be aware that every day won't be easy and despite the bad days and/or moments, the good always outweigh the bad. If this isn't true, then you should go to another school or another job. This school has a lot of problems with discipline. I believe it is because of society, leadership and the school and some teachers not enforcing discipline which then makes it a lot harder for other teachers. I was looking after a class during the first week of the term, we were outside and I tried to talk to the learners and keep them from doing anything stupid. I started talking to a group of boys and of course they started asking me personal questions. Some I were comfortable enough to answer and others not. The next moment, in very inappropriate and I am unable to share them language, the one boy presumes to basically tell me he wants to get with me and...
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3 weeks of substituting

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Hi everyone After you read the previous post, you must think that the rest of the experience was awful BUT it was not. One of the accounting teachers at school struggle with depression and things got too much for her about 3 weeks into the term. She was quite upset on the Wednesday and I remember my mentor teacher telling her not to worry we will take care of everything. We, meaning the school which includes me. I was asked if I will take care of her classes for the rest of the week. I'm not sure if I received any planning at the start but the next week I had none. The teacher took her laptop and all her textbooks with her, which left me with no resources and no planning. I had the schedule for the grade 10 accounting learners because that's the grade I was teaching for at my mentor teacher's. Other than that, I had nothing and my mentor teacher didn't teach the grade eights. By that Friday, I was told to be prepared to teach full time for the next week. ...
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Where did I disappear to?

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Hi everyone I know I promised you guys a daily reflection, but the teacher practical turned out to be much more demanding and time consuming than I thought it would be. From the start, I had problems connecting to my Accounting mentor teacher. After teaching my very first Accounting class, I broke down in teachers afterwards. I was told that I didn't assess whether learners understood what I was teaching. I didn't cry because of that, but because of what happened. I mean I was there to learn after all. I asked how I can correct that and here's the answer I received: Well I don't know, because I have a understanding with my learners so you will have to figure that out. I was really upset, because I quickly realised that I wasn't going to receive any guidance and advice from this teacher. She is a vice principal, loved by all and mostly friendly. My fellow students at the school received great feedback and I got to listen to all these stories at break every d...
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19 July: Day 3

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Hi everyone Today the day felt longer than yesterday. I went to the same Accounting teacher's class today for first period and I like the way the teacher uses a document camera to teach. It does however limit the teacher to staying in one certain part of the classroom, but it might be remedied by forcing oneself to walk around as well. I point this out as this specific class is where I will be teaching. I will have to navigate my way through not staying at one spot but also connecting with the learners while teaching the content.  I used an off period to work on another Math Lit lesson plan after which I went to a different Accounting teacher, I will call her Miss Rek, which gave me some different teaching techniques. She uses her laptop and projector to show the journals on the white board and then she fills them in using whiteboard parkers. This helps her to safe time and also enables her to stand in the middle of the class rather than at one side.  In my opinio...
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18 July: Day 2

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Hi everyone Today was Day 2 of my school observation. I was in the staff room early and made myself a cup of coffee, this is nice not because of the coffee but then you get to greet the teachers and the principal always sees you. We students sit on the right hand side of the podium where the principal addresses the staff. It kind of feels like the naughty corner as we don't have a table yet but only chairs. I went to Accounting classes at Miss S most of the day and to one of Mr ML's classes at the end of the day. I was, and still am, a bit stressed about Accounting as I've never taught or learnt it in English. But the teacher is very relaxed, answers all of my questions and she's an amazing teacher. She has been teaching for several years now and the children love her. They enjoy her stories, participate in class and listens to her without her having to discipline them all the time. It was an absolute pleasure to be in her class today and I wish she was my te...
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17 July: First day of school practical

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Hi everyone Today was my first day at the school where I do my practical. It is a bit hard to get back into routine. I had to get up at 05:30 to be at school 07:15. The teachers are all very friendly and welcoming. The liason teacher is very relaxed, which makes us all relaxed. We had a very relaxed first period where we had a lovely chat with the liason teacher sorting out some admin. The rest of the day I was in the class my Math Lit mentor teacher (Mr ML). I am very happy with this mentor teacher as I know him from my school observation. He has been teaching for a few years, I like the way he keeps discipline in his class without shouting and I feel I can learn a lot from him.  Mr ML taught all day and didn't treat this first day of school as the first day but as a normal school day. The children were calm and worked. Of course there were classes that talked constantly but never disruptive. The grade 9 Maths class were so quiet I thought something was wrong, as ...
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