How to do what??

A sunny Tuesday! Things are finally looking up weather-wise!

I don't know about teaching-wise though. This morning I had to teach the "How-To-Essay" and it's moments like these when I really feel the lack of teacher training and teaching experience.

The "How-To-Essay" is your basic explanatory essay - obviously it is supposed to explain how to do something. Which is fine - the kids understand that. But this essay builds on the building blocks of writing we've been working on all year (my LEAST favorite Language book chapters). And it's not that my kids don't get them (we've learned about topic sentences and details, and descriptive words and pre-writing, and drafting, and editing) it's just that I don't think I teach these chapters very well...I always end up talking too much and for too long, which makes it difficult for them to follow (can you imagine trying to figure out what the teacher is talking about when she keeps saying use details and you don't know what a detail is?). So it's frustrating for me because I know I'm not doing a great job of explaining or demonstrating and I know it's important for them to learn. AND in addition, their English is weak enough that they're struggling both with understanding the structure and organization I want them to use AND the vocabulary and basic grammar of the language they need to write in.

These chapters really make me feel like a second year of teaching would be good because it would iron out all these kinks. If I taught again next year, that second group of kids would benefit from my simply having tried out a few things on the first batch. And it makes me wonder about what I would have learned if I had gone through a teaching program. Can a program really teach you how to teach or is it all theory until you're actually in the classroom? And since different textbooks are different does that make every teaching job different? I wonder if I had taken some classes on language acquisition if everything I see my kids gowing through would make more sense!

Ok I'll have to reflect more on teacher education and the actual process of teaching later! School's over!