Over the weekend, we went to a party for each of our departments. Saturday night, we went to the EL/L party at the program director's house. It was nice to meet some second year EL/L students and to introduce Mark to the other GATs he's been hearing about. On Sunday night, we went to Mark's percussion professor's house for the studio party. It was my turn to meet the people he's been talking about. It's nice to have faces to go with names, and since I plan to be on campus a lot more than I ever was during undergrad, I think it's likely that I'll get to know Mark's friends more, too. His professor's house was pretty incredible, so it was cool to see it. (And encouraging--if he can afford it, and Mark wants a job like his...) We also tried another church on Sunday. It's really close to us, which is great, and we loved the worship time but weren't sure about the teaching. So, our search will continue next weekend.
Today was our first day of class. Mark had a meeting in the morning and one class in the afternoon. I taught my two sections of English 101. I felt like it went okay, although it could have been better (it also could have been worse). The students seem fine so far, but I was definitely nervous going in and I'm afraid they could tell--especially in the first class. I also thought I had plenty planned, but went through it much faster than I expected and ended up letting them go pretty early. Of course, no one complained about that, but I certainly can't make a habit of it. I expect Wednesday to go better--I should be over the worst of my nerves; and they have homework, so I feel like I can expect more from them. (I sure do hope they do their homework!) I guess it'll just take some time to get a feel for how long things take and how manage the class time. I know I rushed through a few things--I kept thinking "go slower!" I need to learn to be comfortable with some silence after asking questions, to give people a chance to respond. Well, I think I should try not to over-analyze it. I probably need to tweak my lesson plans for Wednesday, and otherwise just keep at it till the class goes the way I'd like it to.
Tomorrow I get to go to my first class. (Actually two, because they are still trying to work out a solution to the Linguistics/Preceptorship conflict.) I'm looking forward to putting some focus back on my primary reason for being here and having something to think about besides English 101!
2 comments:
Don't worry, the same thing happened to Diana and by the end of the semester she had it all down pat.
Thanks! I'm feeling better today, now that I've heard other new GATs in the hallway talking about their classes. Thanks also for your encouragement about the Christian community on campus. There are a couple of groups we'd like to try out, schedules permitted. Your experience has left us hopeful about getting connected with other Christians on campus.
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