the first day at shawlands

Today I had my first day at Shawlands Academy and it was quite wonderful!

First of all; my department is incredibly diverse! the pupils, as well as some of the teachers, are from various countries - Poland, Latvia, Somalia, Slovakia - and are very differently skilled (English-wise). While some of them are perfectly capable of communicating in their second language, others were staring blankly at me when I was trying to explain something to them, like they had absolutely no clue what I was on about. It became very clear to me that I'll have to speak a lot more slowly than I normally do when addressing the pupils.

As you may know, the pupils that I'm teaching are following a course (which has no set duration as the levels between the kids differ so greatly) which prepares them for the regular educational system. They're taught English through regular subjects, such as maths, geography, social studies instead of getting full-time grammar and syntax classes. These are also the subjects that I'll be taking on (me a math-teacher - mental!) The classes are quite small - not more than twelve pupils a class - and are therefore quite managable.

I do feel though, that it might take a while for me to get used to this way of teaching and getting on with the pupils. I spent the entire day feeling kind of awkward, not really knowing how strict I am supposed to be towards my class, let alone when to correct their English (one girl, quite adorable in a way, wrote 'I is like pizza') Ah well, I'm sure I'll get a feel for that sort of stuff soon.

r x