And all I got to show for it was a few NI ("needs improvement") categories in my class observation evaluation that my colleague did today.
Sigh...
Eight years ago when I started to teach language, when I reached the Food chapter I had the idea to create a vocabulary handout for food words that I titled "The Food ABCs." It has these categories: Fruit, Vegetables & Legumes, Typical Brazilian Dishes & Savory Appetizers, Fish, Spices & Herbs, and Desserts/Sweets followed by lists of words in alphabetical order. Not particularly brilliant, but I thought it was a fun way to organize the really extensive and fascinating (at least to me) food related vocabulary.
I fine tuned the handout over these past years, and I have always wanted to find a way to include pictures of the foods by making a slide show or even a video (I don't really edit videos, though). Since I had to teach this particular lesson when being evaluated, I had the "
After fiddling with power point and prezi, I decided I would stick to Good Old Word, a program* I've been using since 1994 when my parents got their first computer. Word kept crashing repeatedly, but I kept working and saving the document as a PDF until I was done at 5 am. The Word document is now blank (?!?!) :-( but I have a PDF!!
*now programs are called "apps" on PCs why??!! :-( #hugePetPeeveofmine
So, after all this effort, I took 10+ minutes of class to present the document and, as a result, I got a few NIs and some "sermonizing" about the proper way to introduce vocabulary, get students talking, and teach a language class.
Such a waste of time and effort! I need to write this down so I remember to teach a class exactly as prescribed when he evaluates me again in 2 years.
I desperately need to get myself to bed now, but I wanted to write this post.
Wow, it sounds like class observations are super-judgy at your school! Do you get a chance to respond? Or to have someone else do an observation? I'm so sorry that things turned out this way -- how frustrating and demoralizing.
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