Thwarted Expectations

One of the things I thought would help me this semester was knowing what to expect, and perhaps more importantly, what not to expect. But even with that in mind, I've been thrown for a loop. Because starting a new semester wouldn't be hard enough, I have to perform again on Sunday. Which means practicing for two periods a day all week (if I had classes, they would be forfeit, but all my classes are earlier in the day, so I get to do this on top of my teaching load).

And once I survive that, next week I will begin teaching fifth grade English. Unfortunately, my American co-fellow was unable to return to Jietou for this semester and the school was unable to find a replacement at such short notice. So schedules are being shuffled and I will be teaching third grade and fifth grade English (no more music for me). I understand why this needs to happen--it makes sense to have the American teach as much English as possible--but I'm sad that this means less time with my third graders who I've already gotten to know. Now I get to learn another set of 200 students!

On a brighter note, though, it should be fun to work with slightly older students. The major challenge is going to be figuring out how to adjust my teaching. Since my school combined with other schools last summer, some of the students have had almost no English before. Others have had a couple years of it. But none of them have been speaking English for the last four months. So I'm planning on starting simple with the third grade curriculum, since that's what I know already, and we'll adjust from there. Right now I'm extremely apprehensive. I had thought this semester would be easier than the last since I've settled in already, know the routine, and can improve based on last semester's experience. Now I feel like I'm back and the beginning.  Hopefully I'll feel better about it once I get started.