Thoughts on Teaching

Through my experiences so far as a teaching assistant, I've learned to improve my flexibility and spontaneity in the workplace. I'll admit, I'm the type of person who likes things planned out in my head beforehand, and I like to have quite a bit of control with my work. But I realized this week when yet again a colleague at my school asked me to do a lesson only an hour or two beforehand, that I've improved on my flexibility and spontaneity. At first, these kind of requests caught me off-guard and kind of stressed me out. But now that I've become more comfortable with teaching, I usually accept these requests without a second thought. For instance, last week a colleague asked me to come into her 7th year class and just let the students ask me questions. Questions about my life in the U.S., about myself, and so on. I've done this before for other teachers, and I know that often the students don't necessarily have questions ready, so there tends to be moments of silence or the students become restless and talkative because nothing is keeping their attention. So I've learned to ask them questions. I ask them about their lives, what they know about the U.S., what they would like to know about the U.S. I've also started to allow students to play games like "Simon Says" or Hangman. The word game usually gets students' attention. And although these games might not be the most challenging or thought-provoking, the students are still hearing and using English. And they are hearing and using it with a native speaker, which is something many of my colleagues find very important. I've learned to just relax and be myself. When I'm not worrying so much about my lessons being well-structured or organized, I think they run more naturally.

Because my schedule is not the same every week, I've also learned to be flexible. Of course doing lessons spontaneously like I explained above is partly being flexible. I've learned to just accept the fact that some days I go to my school to teach without knowing when I'll come home. I've learned to just take my work day by day. Some weeks I teach more lessons than other weeks. Some weeks I'm needed a lot and other weeks I'm not needed very much. I've just learned to accept it. I've learned to let go of my frustrations when a class gets canceled or something goes wrong, resulting in me not being able to do a lesson I had spent hours on preparing. And like probably most teachers, I realize more and more that one's lessons will not always go as planned, and sometimes they may go very badly. It's just how teaching is, and you have to make the best of it and be willing to change your original plans. When we teach, we also learn.

Aside from teaching, this past weekend I went to Vienna (Wien) with another teaching assistant that I know. We were only there a little over 24 hours because we only had Saturday and Sunday to travel and it takes about 6 hours to get to Vienna. But we were blessed with beautiful weather! It was quite a bit warmer than usual, in the high 30's and mid 40's, and the sun came out quite a bit! Germany can be quite overcast and gray this time of year, so my body was ready for some Vitamin D! We saw some great sights like Belvedere Palace and Schönbrunn Palace (pictured below),the St. Stephen's Cathedral, and Vienna's beautiful town hall. Oh and eating apple strudel and coffee at Vienna's Sacher Café. And I enjoyed the long train ride, as much as a person can enjoy a 6-hour ride. We had some good conversations and I had two books to read from time to time.

Welp, let's see if I can keep up with my writing!

December Reflections

I know it's January, but since I haven't written in this blog for over a month and didn't write at

all in December, I'm going to give an brief overview of December...

December was quite a busy month.

Visitor from the U.S.: Kenny (my boyfriend) came to visit for the first week of December. It was wonderful to see him, and we also went to visit my relatives in Austria again. While with my relatives, we went to Salzburg's Christkindlmarkt (Christmas market). We got to see the beautifully decorated city and walk around to the various booths of handmade crafts, Christmas and winter items, and delicious food. Below is a picture of the Christmas market.

Snow/Winter Wonderland: Here in Altdorf we got a lot of snow, and I mean a lot, over the first few weeks of December. We even had a day off of school because of the snow! The snow made life a little more interesting and the town prettier. All together I think we probably got over a foot of snow! I went on two walks through a nearby woods that I normally jog through. I have some pictures below of the snow-covered woods.

Christmas Time in Germany: Christmas is quite similar in Germany as it is in the U.S. Decorations of lights, fir tree scrappings, angels, Santa Clauses (Weihnachtsmann in German), etc. Of course, there are some other traditions found in Germany not found in the U.S., such as Advent calendars, which count down the 24 days before Christmas. I've seen these calendars in the U.S., but they aren't as popular there as they are in Germany.

I also had the chance to go to Nuremberg's Christmas Market, which is the most famous one in Germany. When it wasn't too crowded, I enjoyed walking through the rows of booths and drinking a nice warm cup of Glühwein (hot, spiced wine).

From December 24th through December 26th, I stayed with my Austrian relatives. It was really interesting to experience Christmas in Austria and see their traditions. I also went to Christmas Mass at the Catholic church my grandmother grew up in. My Austrian relatives' Christmas traditions are similar to my family's in the U.S., but the Christkind (who brings the children presents) comes on December 24th, and the children open the presents usually that same day. Of course, I missed my family a little bit during these days, and I was particularly anxious to fly home on the 27th! So yes, I decided to come home to Indiana from December 27th to January 3rd. It was a quick week, but I was able to get really cheap airfare, so I decided it was worth it. And it definitely was! Last week was spent relaxing at my parents' house, visiting friends, eating lots of good food, and visiting Muncie and Ball State University. I was sad to leave, but I'm also glad to be back here in Germany to finish my last six months.

Reflections of the past four months: I've been thinking about my time here so far, and I have to say I'm pretty content here. Of course, I have my frustrating days when I feel like my German is terrible and I feel like an awkward foreigner. But at other times I really think I'm helping the students enjoy their English classes. For example, I had a class of 5th graders singing, swaying, and clapping along to an old childhood song, and I received positive feedback about an activity I did with my two conversation groups. For this activity, I made up various discussion questions and different words that the students had to describe for another person to guess. I printed out these questions and words and cut them into little strips of paper. The students and I took turns picking out the strips of paper from a hat and discussing what was on them. It was a relaxed activity for the students, and it was an opportunity for them to talk about themselves and learn about each other.

I plan to start a book club in February. This will be for older students who are interested in reading short stories from various English-speaking authors. I'm excited to share with the students one of my own interests, and hopefully this club will allow them to enjoy learning the English language.

I promise I will do a better job in the coming weeks with my updating!