My Week in Preview

Posted on February 24, 2008
Filed under Uncategorized

It’s Week 5 already!!! Did you hear that? WEEK 5! Now, I knew this year would go quickly, just like all the other ones do, but Week 5?! I was sooo supposed to be organised by now.

My colleague, Anne wrote a post about her Week in Review last week and I thought I should do the same. Although, rather than adding to the list of things I’m meaning to do (all with the best of intentions of course), I am going to write about what I’m going to do NOW. That way I get a blog post written, I get to think about what I really want to get out of this coming week which allows me to focus my planning a bit more. I’ll be able to check back at the end of the week and see how I’ve gone and then start all over again for the following week. Hmm, could be a good process!

So, rather than starting another week feeling a bit lacking in the focus department and ending up with some ordinary lessons because of it, here is what I hope to achieve this week:

1. I want to use the SMART Board in three different ways

2. I want all of my students in Years 4 – 11 to know how to and leave a comment on the technoChinese blog and to actively use it to learn some Chinese. I’ve got 3 lessons on there for them at the moment, and will be adding another this week.

3. I want to reiterate to most of my classes why Chinese is a good thing to learn. The need reminding every now and again, especially if they are in Year 8.

4. I want to make sure each lesson contains some intercultural knowledge. One of the things we are reviewing this week is how to introduce yourself. The intercultural information I want to add in with this is about how the Chinese name people and how English names are translated into Chinese. I’ll get the kids to blog about this too. (Every student from Grade 4/5 – 8 and some 9/10s have their own blog which they will be using for many different subjects. Links to their blogs can be found on technoChinese).

The intercultural aspect of language teaching is very important and can often be a good way of engaging those students who are not necessarily interested in the language itself. I don’t think I do enough of it in my class, so I’m going to up the ante a bit!

5. Last of all this week, I think I’ll give most of my students an ongoing assignment – to find anything around them – newspaper and magazine articles, pictures, souvenirs etc that feature China or something Chinese and bring it into class. That’s one way I’ve thought of to show these kids that China and Chinese does not just exist in Room 14. I think I might also get the students in a few of my classes (I teach all levels from Prep to 11) to take turns at presenting something (in any way they see fit) they have found out about China or the Chinese language. 1 presentation per class per week will keep it going for a while and hopefully generate some good discussions and blog posts!

Hang on, I’ve thought of something else…

6. Bring the school set of video iPod into my class and load them up with Chinese lessons!

Hmm, lots to do! The more I write about what I want to accomplish, the more things I find to add to the list. Bring it on.

Image is ‘Everlasting’ by *Cati Kaoe*

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3 Responses to “My Week in Preview”

murcha on February 24th, 2008 8:01 am

Hi Jess meant to tell you that there was a really good article in the weekend papers last weekend on how Australia lags behind with learning second languages and how important they are. All the best with your goals. Shall watch with great interest.
murcha on February 24th, 2008 8:04 am

Hey and Jess how did you get the flickr plugin to work. I wanted to try that so will have to catch you some time. Lookin’ good
Kim Pericles on February 27th, 2008 5:28 am

Ah Jess, thank you, thank you, thank you!
What a great idea to get focussed and ready for the week ahead! I can’t believe we are (near the end of) Week 5 either – so much I still need/want to get organised. Your post has really “hit a nerve” with me, but has helped me to see that I’m not the only one who is feeling a bit oout of the flow.

Now all I need to do is write a couple of posts, finish off a few projects and …..bring it on