11-02

11-2 10:21am – Being Like Emeril

Today I’m gonna have to BAM! Kick it up a notch. I paid pretty good attention to what Walter did during his lessons yesterday, and I think I picked up a lot of good pointers. In terms of the pace of my speech, and giving clear instructions with good clarification and re-confirmation, I think the most important part is to think of it as almost a game. Take it easy, be confident and in charge, and make it somewhere I can relax, and have fun with the tasks. Alex and Walter both have this sort of approach during training and lessons like what we’re doing is almost a game show. And man, can I ever do that. So, as long as I keep in mind the things that have to be done, and in what order, I think this is going to be phenomenally easy after a point to B.S. and do on the fly. So from here on in, it’s all about the confidence, and relaxation.
As far as corrective feedback, I think I can manage that, it’s just a matter of being ok pointing things out, instead of just ignoring it, or asking them to repeat things.

Alright, now I gotta get ready for the day, and head outta here. I think I will leave a little earlier than I did yesterday, so I don’t have an entire hour to kill before training starts.

I decided to go with my black shirt today, because my white one is a little filthy from the first couple of days where that was all I had to wear. I’m gonna have to wash it soon, along with those pants, and hope for the best there. There are no dryers here, so, it all gets hung up. It’s bullcrap.
The problem with my black shirt is that, well, it’s a smaller shirt than the rest of them. I bought this shirt to be a snug fit, because I was always planning to have the sleeves rolled up and the collar unbuttoned. But now it’s a work shirt, and so there are some difficulties. The collar isn’t so much an issue, but the sleeves are. When they’re buttoned, my right wrist is very tight, and that’s an issue with my piercing. I had to take a pair of scissors and make the button opening wider, and now it’s alright. I still have to worry about my sleeve creeping up and exposing it, especially during training. I think with how self-conscious I am right now I’ll have no problem keeping tabs on it.
Having said that, I’m a sexy bitch in this outfit. It’s nice to have an outfit that is, you know, more fitted. The other shirts I have are like tarps. Collared, pressed, neatly buttoned and coordinated tarps.

10:17pm – Not Half Bad

Not half bad, really. I mean, like, 45% bad, but, not half. We taught three lessons today, on our own, without any help, just someone looking on from another room. The first one, a 7A group, well, to be honest I’m drawing a blank. I honestly don’t remember much of it at all. Eek. I know stress clouds the memory, but, sheesh. I remember that they were a pretty good group, and by and large it went pretty well. Ryan, the teacher who reviewed my lesson gave me good feedback, and I also remember that I…was talking about…passports…tickets the airport! We talked about AHH!!! I remember. Ok, so, there were three students, two girls and one boy. One was a guy who had some problems in his life over the last two years, he was about my age I’d imagine, but apparently he had some problems coming in after drinking. Anyway, he was really good in class, and in his other lessons that day. I never would have known he wasn’t a good student at some point. He led a lot of the discussion sometimes, and helped me clarify a couple of questions like, “Why is ‘Did you pack this bag yourself?’ important?” We had a couple odd moments, but, we laughed through them, and everything was alright.
My next lesson was not so lucky. I had a group of 2, 7B students, one of whom showed up 15 minutes into the lesson. Apparently she’s notorious for showing up late. The lesson was about introducing yourself. I was halfway through the Language Input section when she came in, and I had to kinda work her in to what we were already doing. It was difficult, because they were of a slightly lower level, and giving clear, well-understood directions is a lot harder. There were a lot of awkward moments, but, thankfully we got through them and made it to the end. I hope I don’t have toooooo many more lessons like that, it was a bit stressful but I know I learned a lot.
After that, and lunch, came my last lesson, a group of 2 level 4 students. There ware supposed to be three, but one called in. That class was a blast. We talked about photographs, and vacations, and picked out our favorite pictures from groups and talked about ones we didn’t like and why. There was a lot of good conversation, and a lot of independent thought. The guy in the group had noted in his file that he was distant and quiet, and tended to go off on tangents given the chance. I found out quickly why this was written, but I blame the instructors for the comments more than him. He didn’t seem to like talking about the subjects, he wanted to talk about things he cared about, and given the chance, talked about getting arrested in Mexico for drinking in public rather than what he didn’t like about the photo of the room with the chairs that are half cut off. I can’t say I blame him. He must be frustrated like I was, learning Japanese, when I was forced to talk about boring subjects. I didn’t talk about much anything either, but, given the chance to talk about what I wanted, I opened up and had a great time. He was the same way. I wanted to encourage that however I could, so after a time I kinda changed the course of the lesson to encompass the vacations they took where they took pictures they liked, and what experiences they enjoyed. Theeeeeen the talking started, and the good times rolled on out. It was by far my best lesson so far, and afterwards my trainer and my co-trainee all had a good time joking, and getting ready for tomorrow, where I will have 4 lessons, in pairs, to get ready for having consecutive lessons.