Job Discussion Forums

[naturegirl321]

I have a student teacher in my class now for the month of June. From Candian, kind of a teach and travel thing.

Anyone ever had to do this before? It's the first time it's happened, so there's no real organisation. We were just told that they have to help us.

So this week, we've had school wide exams and she's been doing nothing. I feel sorry for her, seems bored.

Starting next week, she'll be teaching, but I've had to juggle my schedule to make sure she has classes with all my students or else they'll be jealous if they don't have classes with her.

Switching classes, exams, etc, has been a headache, now I know why the other teachers didn't want a student teacher.

[Justin Trullinger]

I haven't dealt with this directly, but it's something that may be coming up in the next year.

I've been in touch with several US teachers who have both "hosted" (is that the word) student teachers, and were student teachers themselves, though not recently.

It seems that both "hosts" and student teachers report the best experiences when the student teacher has a lot of autonomy.

How long have you got her for? If she's around for a while, can you get her on a regular schedule of things she's responsible for? Letting her take over certain classes on a long term basis has been recommended to me. If student jealously means she should be with all of them sometimes, maybe you could put her in charge of a certain subject? (Say, all the reading classes, all the conversation classes, or whatever) This will give her a more realistic teaching experience, make sure that she is in regular contact with the same students on an ongoing basis, and reduce your workload...

I'd sit down and talk options with her- another question, if she's recently done training, is what you may be able to learn from her. Is there anything she's had recent instruction in that you feel weak at?

All the best,
Justin

[naturegirl321]

[Justin Trullinger]

[Jetgirly]

I just came off a year of student teaching for fifteen hours per week, and I've got another four months of full-time student teaching coming up this September.

I got along well with my partner teacher but I didn't have a lot of respect for what she did in her classroom. Her approach to teaching was very book-centered, with students reading and taking notes for about 70% of the class. She would often encourage me to "get more involved"... but I didn't see how I could get more involved when the students were just copying from a textbook. The rare times that I tried to get the students involved in more communicative, student-centered learning she expressed her displeasure.

My advice would be:

- Create opportunities for the student teacher to work directly with the students right from the start, building up to a point where they can lead the entire class (while you supervise)
- Allow the student teacher to teach the same curriculum in a different way than you normally do, ESPECIALLY if that student teacher is in a program REQUIRING them to teach in a certain manner (my university evaluated me based on my ability to bring inquiry-based education into the classroom... but my partner teacher didn't know what "inquiry" meant- she actually asked me)
- It's okay to give the student teacher busywork, but it should be in proportion to their other contributions to the class. If you don't let the student teacher design assignments and teach lessons, it's unfair to make them do all your marking and photocopying

[spiral78]

Jetgirly, was your teaching practice in ESL/EFL or something different?

[saint57]

After a week or two I'd let the student teacher completely take over my schedule. You are there to provide guidance. Be nice if they screw something up.

I really don't care too much for student teachers who criticize their host teacher's style. What have you ever done that's so special? How will you feel in a few years when you agree to take on a student teacher and they have the nerve to criticize you.

[naturegirl321]

I can sympathizes with teaching from the book. Before at a uni where I taught, I had 22.5 hours of teaching with three classes, but only two of them were different. So I only had to prepare two classes. And in 16 weeks I had to make 6 quizzes. That was it.

Now I�m at a school. I have 7 classes, 6 are different. Two of the classes are completely new this year, all they have is the basics: The title of the course. No book, syllabus, curriculum, nothing. And I have to do that as well. And a uni, which is another class, plus online. Grand total, I teach 40 hours a week. Not to mention the planning, paperwork, grading, etc.

For the school have to make an annual plan, which is about 40 pages, for each class, two unit plans, six pages each, a quarter for each class, and weekly lesson plans. In addition, each class has 10 quizzes a quarter, which I also have to make. Our grading sheets are four pages long, whereas before they only had 10 grades when I was at my old uni. And guess who makes the grading sheets? We have ten pages of things we have to test and we have to correlate that to what we�re teaching. Unfortunately, the coordinator simply thought these up, more than half aren�t even found in the books we use.

I wish I could spend half an hour planning my lessons, but as time constraints have it my school stresses quantity not quality. I would argue that we should have separate courses, but the roll everything into one. For example, we have English four times a week, for about 3.5 hours total. In that time, we�re supposed to cover FCE / CAE, (which is Writing, Reading, Use of English, Listening and Speaking) Media, non- FCE / CAE Grammar, Speeches, and Research. And these extras aren�t what�s found on the FCE / CAE exam. So that�s extra work, which I have to get off the internet.

I also have a family and am doing an MA. So if I have a choice to make up creative things for my students or spend time with my husband, my students are going to lose.

With less classes and paperwork, I could be more creative. All the busy work of making such detailed plans, like at the beginning of the year, do you know when you are going to teach �when to use dashes� ? Maybe that teacher had the same time constraints. Anyways, just my two cents.

[Jetgirly]

Spiral -

ESL isn't considered a teachable major at any university that I've come across. So, I am registered in the Language Arts strand at my university BUT for my practicum I was paired with a school's ESL coordinator (who also taught a bit of LA). The majority of my first practicum took place in ESL classrooms.

Also, as far as criticizing my supervising teacher... I had been teaching ESL for about two years when I enrolled in the B.Ed program. I had more ESL experience than some of the other teachers in the department, who had different teachable majors and were picking up ESL courses to fill their timetables (as is done in public schools). I would never criticise my partner teacher to her face (or to any other staff or students at the school), but I think I was in a position to fairly evaluate her teaching strategy.

[spiral78]

Jetgirly, I agree with you. In my limited experience with North American universities, the established teachers in the ESL departments have generally been trained in some other branch of education, often long ago (teaching methodologies have evolved pretty radically over the past 10-15 years in most branches of education, as you're aware). I've also encountered methods that you described used by long-established (and respected!) teachers.

I found working with them among the most quietly frustrating experiences of my life...

I wonder if it wouldn't be ideal to require professional teachers, like doctors, to upgrade their skills and knowledge on a regular basis.

Just a pipe dream, I'm sure....

[naturegirl321]

The day before yesterday I told her that one of her three classes would be switched with a class on Friday. So yesterday she came and said that she was really glad she didn't have to teach today. I told her she had a class in five minutes. She was shocked. She thought that all her classes had been cancelled. So she had to wing two of her classes and then for her class after lunch, she simply didn't show up.