so far so good...

Survived week 2 here in Cold Ash. It's a lot of work teaching at an "intensive but fun" summer school - I seem to work about 15 hours a day, about 7 of which are in the classroom. Weekends are good though. No classes, nothing much happening, maybe an expedition to a shop or the pub... and catching up on lots of sleep. And blog writing.
The students' blog is going well - I've just worked out that comment moderation was on, which I hadn't noticed, and that is why only my comments have been appearing on the blog - everyone else's were waiting for my approval. So that's done now, and I've turned moderation off. I should make sure I can delete unwanted comments though. I also want to getthe students doing more of the writing and posts in their free time, rather than just in our class time, as there is only one computer room here for 40 classes, so time there is precious. It's funny - last year the booking sheet for the computer room seemed to be mostly empty, but this year it fills up very quickly each week. I've reserved a regular monday morning spot, so that new members of the class (which changes slightly every week) can be introduced to the blog and how to use it. It also gives the kids a chance to write about their action-packed weekend!
Had a few very successful lessons this week - did the australian stories lesson, which mostly went ok, although will go better the second time around. I needed more time in the computer room, as we only got through about half of it, but the crossword worked well, and they seemed to like the stories, despite Yeliz's blog post about it. She never seemed to be particularly impressed with anything anyway!
Also got about 3 hours work out of the poem The Gruffalo, which was lovely. It fitted well with the animal theme for the week (to tie in with the zoo trip) and taught them a lot of animal body parts - good for a high pre-int class that already knew most animal names. We did running dictation, a wordsearch, gap fill, the Gruffalo song, and dictogloss poetry over three different days, until we were all Gruffaloed out. It was so incredibly hot this week, that on the first gruffalo day, after the running dictation, we all went out and sat under a tree and I read them the poem from the beautiful picture book one of the other teachers had brought here. I had a whole class of 10-13 year olds listening to me read them a story like a preschool class, hanging on each word. It was lovely.
And even better - this week I'm swapping classes with Lesley (who did the cert tesol with me 4 years ago, and decided to join me here this year) and that means a whole fresh batch of students, and even though they are one level lower (sort of low pre-int or elementary) I'm sure I can reuse a lot of the stuff I've done with my class these last two weeks. I love recycling!

Here's a photo of this week's project. We didn't win this week - couldn't win two weeks in a row! But, after a hot, tired week when afternoon classes (project time is the hour and a half after the lunch break) were a dead loss, they all pulled together on the friday to produce a lovely zoo map/model. It's on 4 desks in my class, and now I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it. I just can't destroy it!

Doubt I'll have time for more posts til next weekend, but the students' blog will be going ahead with a whole new bunch of kids. I hope the old ones keep writing occasionally too!

A Successful Dictogloss

I just used Dictogloss in a class for the first time, having heard about it in Marion's Grammar for Teachers class this last semester. I decided to twist it slightly and do Dictogloss Poetry.
As the theme and excursion this week here was all about cities and London, I did A.A. Milne's Buckingham Palace poem. I read the first 3 verses probably about 4 of 5 times over the course of the lesson, and we did some quick vocab and discussion of the poem, but eventually the kids ended up, mostly, with version of the poem they had written themselves, which was wonderful. My favourite one is actually all about Galaces, rather than palaces and Alices, but the rhythm is so good, it's stll a great, though abstract, poem!

The blog is also going well. Needs more pics though. Have a look!

Downe House, Cold Ash

No, not the setting for a gothic novel, but the reather pleasant summer school I am working at again this year.

Cold Ash is much as I remember it, although as the students arrived yesterday it's all a lot less peaceful than it was on thursday and friday! Kate spent 9 hours collecting them from Heathrow yesterday, which sounded fun, and seemed horribly stressed yesterday evening, but she bounced at me happily at lunch today after an apparently successful art class this morning, so hopefully the job will be ok! Activity Organisers work a lot more than Teachers, and we never actually have a moment free together, except for her one evening off each week, so we won't see much of each other, but that's ok. We'll cope. I start actually teaching tomorrow, which I wasn't worried about until I discovered that they chucked all my lesson plans and stuff from last year. The previous year they kept everyone's folders, so I left all my stuff here, but this year is disappeared, so I have to start from scratch. At least I rememebr a lot of the ideas!

At least I have a project idea already. We have to have something to present to the other classes on Friday afternoon. I'm growing watercress! and then doing a book or display on food from around the world, and for the display session at the end of the week, we'll make English cress sandwiches with the cress they've grown (I hope - otherwise cucumber, I guess!) and Australian Fairy bread to hand out.
Still working out the performance idea for Thursday evening's Entertainment Night. Something to do with the theme "Around the World", and the more general "cities" theme. hmm...

My students' blog should get underway tomorrow - the computer room is booked for the 3rd lesson, so that after some getting to know you activites and rules and procedures and info about the school and the week plan, we can go get the idea of writing online firmly into their heads for the week.