I just realized that I haven't set up post categories so everything so far has just been "general." I'll try to add some and make things more organized. Lack of organization is one of my complaints about blogs in general.
Anyway, the rest of the day went fine, though I'm very tired. It's 7pm and I'm going to sort papers and go to bed. Today we saw a video showing a day in the life of a JET and it was depressing. I hope my school is different or I might drive myself crazy. The kids looked bored to tears and the JET spoke in a monotone with unnatural rhythm and in an attempt to speak simply he dropped articles and other important aspects of English grammar! The students watched the teachers perform a dialogue, then they all spoke it together, then the practiced it in pairs, then they performed it for the class. This is all the same dialogue! They didn't change it in the slightest, so all they did was memorize the particular conversation that will never be used in reality. I don't know how I'm going to resolve my role as a teacher in this system with my philosophies of unschooling. I pray that God makes a way for us to learn from each other! At the very least I can come home able to say I was a teacher and able to communicate more specifically why the system isn't ideal.
Well, I survived day 1. Tomorrow is another full day of orientation then we leave for our prefectures on Wednesday.
Anyway, the rest of the day went fine, though I'm very tired. It's 7pm and I'm going to sort papers and go to bed. Today we saw a video showing a day in the life of a JET and it was depressing. I hope my school is different or I might drive myself crazy. The kids looked bored to tears and the JET spoke in a monotone with unnatural rhythm and in an attempt to speak simply he dropped articles and other important aspects of English grammar! The students watched the teachers perform a dialogue, then they all spoke it together, then the practiced it in pairs, then they performed it for the class. This is all the same dialogue! They didn't change it in the slightest, so all they did was memorize the particular conversation that will never be used in reality. I don't know how I'm going to resolve my role as a teacher in this system with my philosophies of unschooling. I pray that God makes a way for us to learn from each other! At the very least I can come home able to say I was a teacher and able to communicate more specifically why the system isn't ideal.
Well, I survived day 1. Tomorrow is another full day of orientation then we leave for our prefectures on Wednesday.
Comments
The dialogue part may not be so bad. My first French course used memorized dialogues and I found them helpful for learning phrases and how words are used together. Later courses (different school, different texts)focused mostly on grammar and rules and were not nearly as helpful. Of course real conversation is better, but I think memorized dialogues can be a beginning.
Posted by
SursumCorda
on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 9:54 am
Yes, but at least in ASL we would subsitute different vocabulary in the dialogues we learned so there was at least some spontineaity in it. Would you like coffe, tea, or orange juice seems like a rather limited list. . .
Posted by
IrishOboe
on Monday, July 25, 2005 at 6:22 pm
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