I have officially met all my kids now. Sunday was my first class, a professional competency class at An Najah University, which went surprisingly well given that I make my living as an unpaid intern. Monday was my first day of teaching classes at the center, where I taught a women's aerobics class as well as my first art class. The aerobics class was a blast. It was fun to see a group of women having so much fun and working so hard. In the afternoon, I taught my first art class. I was short a volunteer in my class, and it was chaotic and stressful in the room and the language barrier made it even harder. The whole class felt a little out of control, and left me really nervous about round two of classes.
Classes are divided into sections, so every Monday and Wednesday I teach one group of kids and every Tuesday and Thursday I teach a different one using the same lesson plan. So I learned from mistakes made on Monday for today's class and modified my lesson plan slightly, and luckily, with the addition of my last volunteer and a much calmer batch of kids, today went great.
I actually walked out of class today feeling like a teacher, whereas yesterday I felt a little lost and like I didn't have control of my class. Today kids seemed engaged and interested in the lesson and were willing to listen and participate in a way they weren't yesterday.
Today I also taught Advanced English for moms in the community. Most of the women speak very little English despite being placed in the Advanced class, so hopefully that class will smooth out as we figure out the difficulty level to work at.
Tomorrow I have the same group of kids as yesterday, so wish me luck trying again with them...
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