Today was my first day of teaching. I not only had my history classes but I also met all my ESL students for the first time.

History classes first.

Overall they went very well. I was pretty planned and out and had created handouts for each of my classes to give them some sort of structure as we went through the curriculum. I would have to say my 7th grade World History class was the most fun. We were able to have a pretty good time talking about the death of Julius Caesar and the feud between Antony and Octavian (along with Cleopatra) leading to Octavian becoming Caesar Augustus.

8th Grade U.S. history was difficult. There is just so much content to get through and so little time to do it. I don’t think I mentioned it before but after I had sequenced all my classes (which I did for a typical 5 day week) I found out that I only have my 8th and 9th graders FOUR times a week. So, I lost a day each week, which is no fun when you have half the year to get through three-quarters of the content. Oh well, I can only do what I can. Like I said, I am hoping some of the structure and my content area knowledge will help the students understand the content and get through it quicker then they did with the previous teacher.

Anyway, 8th grade. I had created a fill in the blank reading guide as I discussed the content (Boston Massacre, First Continental Congress, etc.) and the students were able to keep up with me. But I felt like I was still going through the content way too fast and that they weren’t taking it all in. It is hard to gauge how much they understand when their second language is English. Other teachers have said that you can ask them if they understand you, and they’ll say yes, but they are to scared to say they don’t because they don’t want their English skills to be seen as lacking around their other classmates. So, I will do what I can and give them the tools that I think will help them succeed on the tests and really their other classes as well.



9th Grade is going to be tough as well. There is only so much you can do with World Geography in terms of how you present it. And with lack of basic geography materials (maps, globes, etc) it is going to be a lot more difficult. There are only nine 9th graders though and although it sounds like they can cause some trouble, it shouldn’t be too bad getting through the content with them. I’ll always be looking for new and creative ways to present the material.

The ESL class was a riot. I had two 40-minute classes with them today in which I was supposed to work on phonics, which I did. But this included us saying the alphabet, saying the vowels (short sounds to begin with) and going through the colors. We just did repetition for the first 40-minute class period. For the second class period we reviewed what we had gone through earlier and then played hot-potato with the eraser. I played music on my laptop as the students passed the eraser among themselves. When I stopped the music whatever student had the eraser had to come to the front of the classroom and go through the vowels, the alphabet or the colors. Most of the kids loved it, a few I could tell got bored with it (granted the class age range is from 4th grade to 10th grade). It was pretty hilarious because I was talking in all English (with a little Spanish here and there) and when I asked the students what music they like they looked at me blankly. But then I said Michael Jackson the place went nuts. One of the fourth graders got out of his desk and even broke out a couple of MJ dance moves—it was hilarious. Overall it was a lot of fun and teaching phonics and vocab will have its challenges, but it is very unique and will only help me as an educator. I did talk to Mr. Lara today and evidently there is a curriculum on its way for the class—it’ll be here on Monday. So it sounds like there will be a lot of repetition with vowels and the like this week. I have them for four 40-minute periods tomorrow. Game on.

For the record I ran up the mountain today and I am getting much better. Still a long way to go though.