The pre-first day post.

The day has finally [almost] arrived...February 12, the first day of student teaching. I wish that my methods class had required more of me, but once again, I prove to be the exception to the rule. As a French Education major, I have made it through my entire college career without ever being explicitly taught how to teach a single French lesson or unit. I have no fellow classmates to steal ideas from, because all my classmates are Spanish teachers who honestly seem pretty incompetent and rely on Selena and Dora the Explorer for cultural lessons.

But I start tomorrow teaching one of the most important verbs to a French I class of 25 students. I have some tricks up my sleeve, some ideas brewing, but it's all a matter of seeing how much my supervisor will let me break away from what she normally does. So these first few weeks will probably be rather interesting, as I hope to get clearance for not using the textbook exams or worksheets in order to make my instruction more contextualized and have my assessments reflect what the students are actually learning. I anticipate lots of grumpy students at the beginning, but hopefully my never-ending positivity can aid them in getting past the "this isn't how Mme. Wilson does it" phase. Details to come, stay tuned.