Days 2 & 3

Day 2 and 3 saw us teaching our first class along with adventures around the MTR subway system.

Mary had done a lot of the prep work in preparing the lesson plan and we had spent a good deal of time chatting about it and modifying it and now we just had to see if it work work in front of a class.

Being honest, I was quite nervous before the first class. The squad were still getting to know each other and I had no idea about how the students would respond to us. It was difficult to know if we were getting through to our first group as they seamed unwilling to answer and participate. As I spoke to them and asked questions of them, I was thinking to myself "Have we gotten too complicated?" or "did we explain this right?" However whatever shyness the students had at engaging in questions was lost when it came to a debate about school uniforms. They all seamed to relish the opportunity to speak their minds themselves and the group I had specifically really had seamed to grasp ideas such as correct definitions and statement, explanation, example. They were also well adept at picking out rebuttal and trying to prove that their classmates were wrong!

It was a real relief to know that we had in many ways communicated effectively (after all thats what we are here to teach!) and a quick revision of the lesson plan I think helped us emphasize more important aspects in the time allowed. This reflected better on our Day 3 class - who engaged more and gave us even better speeches in the final debate.

Tomorrow we attempt to show teachers how useful debate is in the classroom. Trying to teach people who teach for a living should be interesting!

Eoin