My class

Hello all!

Well, finally, the reason we are here. The schools! Very different. The first couple days we were here I realized what I was doing.  I realized that I was going to be teaching in a school system that I had never been taught in! I was really nervous. I didn't know what to expect. I was afraid of doing something the wrong way and failing student teaching!

But all has been well.  It is a very different experience.  We are teaching at Ancilla Primary and Junior High School.  It is a Catholic school.  The students range from 2 years old to grade 9.  The first day, the Headmistress took us around and introduced us to all of the classes.  Most of the classrooms look the same. The 2 and 3 year olds have some color in the room.  I am teaching the 5-year-olds and some days I go to the 4-year-olds to teach writing their letters.  The nursery wants me to teach in there too but I am trying to stay with the 4 and 5 years because that is more of the age group I am required to do.

I have 40 5-year-olds and 40 4-year-olds.  Yeah.  Big, big class.  It's a lot of names to remember. I find it difficult because some of the students have what I call "American sounding" names and others have Ghanaian sounding names.  Those are the names I am struggling with.  And I can't pronounce them the same either so even if I know the student's name, he or she might not even give me their attention because they don't know I am calling their name.  I am really trying.  Also, with names that are "American sounding"  they are not spelled the way I think of it being spelled.  But, we are getting their.  The students are patient with me and repeat their names for me multiple times.

So far I have done more teaching than I thought I would.  The students practice spelling and writing every day.  They have about an hour for each.  They also have math every day which they have for an hour and a half or so.  School starts at 7:15 with Assembly and classes start at 8:00.  For reading, the students have a few different textbooks that they read from.  One works more on word families and the other is just basic words the kids need to know how to read and spell.  For writing, they usually have a sentence they have to read, spell, and write.  Today they spelled their basic words for writing practice.  It is a lot of repeat and memorize.  It's difficult because the school and the students don't have many extra materials such as paper.  The students have their small notebooks but they do not write in it unless they have an assignment, so things like extra practice isn't done.  I made word family flash cards for them so that when they are done with their assignment they are not disrupting the other students who are still working.  Math is done with chips to add.  This was the first manipulative I saw in the classroom. They were to show their addition problems. We used these as well as their fingers to do the adding.  It worked really well. Of course, it will all be repetition and practice but for today, it went well.  Today I also read a story to the class.  We read “Rumble in the Jungle” and I had the kids make the noise of the animals.  Also a big hit. 
Due to lack of resources the appearance and types of activities and lessons that I am used to at schools in the States are not often seen.  The classroom has a few posters but otherwise there is not artwork or colorful posters on the walls.  The classroom is small so it is hard to do movement activities and centers.  The students sit two or three to a table and we are working on sharing and helping each other instead of distracting each other and poking each other.  With a large classroom, my classroom management skills are being tested every second.  The kids are funny though. My favorite is when they are given a sentence to copy in their book and a student will come up to me and say “Auntie, so and so is copying me!”  I tell them that they all have the same sentence so no one is copying anyone.  Auntie is our Miss.  I kind of like it.  

Time is running out. Until next time...