ELang 105

I've been pretty busy since school started.  It's the usual run-to-class, run-to-the-library-to-study, run-to-catch-the-bus-home thing.  But I have something new in the mix!  It's ELang 105.

ELang 105 is BYU's freshman writing class for international students.  It helps international students learn more (or something) about the writing process, academic writing, formatting, plagiarism avoidance, and research.  It's a way to get them started on writing without throwing them in over their heads with a teacher whose familiar with second language learners.  Then they do their normal advanced writing class in whatever area they are studying.

And I guess that technically ELang 105 isn't new to me.  I TA-ed this class for almost 2 years when Alison McMurry was the teacher.  I got to do a lot of the same stuff that she did as a teacher, but I started out slow, doing basicly nothing.  Alison was my mentor and she organized the class and how it advanced, and she taught me so much about teaching, and teaching this class in particular.

And now I am teaching it!  I am teaching a BYU day time course!  I teach 3 days a week for an hour, and have office hours 3 hours a week.  I am in charge, and I pretty much know what I'm doing, thanks to my great training.  We've just finished our 2nd week of class, and it's pretty nice.

I am technically considered a student teacher, since I am still a graduate student.  So I don't get my own office.  But I do get my own desk (that I only have to share with 2 people) in a student instructor office (that I only share with about 30 people).  But this is a great experience for me, to build my instruction skills and to build my resume.

And yes, this class does add to the amount of things I have to do.  It does make me busier.  But it makes me happier.  I enjoy teaching this class more than I enjoy the classes I'm taking right now.  And I think that's always how it's going to be.  I want to be a great teacher, and I have to take these classes to do that, but my real motivation comes from interaction with students in the classroom and I don't think I'll ever want to move away from that.

Updates

So, updates for the months of April, May, June, and July:

Dave and I have been running pretty regularly. We try to run about 3 times a week. We don't always make it, but then we count in our Sunday walk! When we go for our runs, we have several different routes that we take, to keep things interesting. One is in the field at the junior high behind our house. Another is around the big block (that's actually really a few blocks together). One is through the neighborhood that's across the Jordan Parkway from us. That one is my favorite because I like to look at the houses that we pass and plan what our house will look like one day.

I participated in National Multiple Sclerosis Society MS Walk in Salt Lake City this year. This actually took place on April 24, but I never blogged about it. It was a 3-mile walk to benefit the MS Society and its research on Multiple Sclerosis. I did this with my friend Tara Hoppie (Jenny's sister-in-law) and a bunch of her friends and family. There were a TON of people doing the walk, and it was a blast. I keep meaning to post pictures of this, which has kept me from posting at all. So I am just going to go ahead and post without them, and then write another post with pictures if I ever get around to it!

Dave had his birthday on May 21. He's a few months younger than I am, and let me tell you, it's so much fun to rob this cradle! We had fun, and I am looking forward to growing 1 year older with him.

The show Lost finished on May 23. Wow! What a journey. I was personally very moved by the ending. My interpretation is that the people from the island ended up in some kind of afterlife, where they are somewhat distracted from that fact because they are busy living the lives that they wanted to live. But they are reminded of what was really important to them (their experiences on the island) by the people who truly mattered to them. It was a beautiful ending. It motivated me to really live my life spending time on the beautiful things that I will want to remember after this life.

Halfway through the summer I finished teaching 2 classes and started 2 new classes. The evening writing class ended on June 17. Then my new morning reading class started on June 21. The daytime writing class ended on June 23. Then the afternoon reading class started on June 24! So at most I've been teaching 3 classes at once. Right now all I'm teaching is reading, and I'm so glad to leave behind grading essays, until I start teaching another writing class in the fall!

On June 24, my sister Erin found out she's having a boy! I am so excited for her! This is her 2nd child, and my 20th neice/nephew! Whew!

We just bought a pet pig!

I really like this swimsuit and I want to win it!

Dave is starting to work at the District Attorney's office in Slat Lake instead of the Attorney General's Office. He is going to be doing criminal work now (criminal law that is, not criminal activities). He's enjoyed his time at the Attorney General's Office, but he's looking forward to getting experience in what will hopefully be his line of work after he receives his JD next year.

So that's it for us! I have been meaning to post this for quite some time now, and I'm forcing myself to post it without pictures. But know that we are alive and well, and we'll be updating again soon!

Rough Mondays

Okay, this blog is sort of turning into my journal about teaching. I'm sure that that will slow down as the semester progresses and teaching stops taking over my life. But right now I'm doing a lot of preparation for my classes, a lot of grading homework for my classes, and a lot of teaching IN my classes!

Mondays are kind of rough for me. I have usually prepared well for my classes. This weekend I took a chunk of Saturday to prepare. And yet, when I sit down for all of the last minute details, I always find so many things that I missed in my preparation! Today was particularly difficult because I found out that I was going to have two new students in my class at the ELC. They were in a lower level, but they were moved up after the first week because their skills were good enough. So I had to talk to them about a bunch of stuff that they've missed. And I had several students in my writing class at UVU that showed up for the first time today. They've been registered for the class and just haven't shown up. There's one more that still hasn't shown up, because she thought that she was in another section and just realized today that she had been in the wrong class. She's going to come tomorrow. [Sigh] I will be glad when this week is done, I have all of my class rolls finalized, I've caught everyone up on what they need to be doing, and I can stop having these last minute emergencies to take care of.

Mondays are also hard because it's kind of hard to just jump into teaching when you haven't done it during the weekend. I do teach a primary class on Sundays, but it's to 3-year-olds, and I only teach every other week. So I really didn't have to think about classroom management much this weekend. So it's always kind of a jolt to get back into it on Mondays.

Fortunately, I have 3 classes on Mondays, so by the end of Monday, I'm back into the swing of things! You've got to love Mondays!

I really do love teaching.

So, I may have had some teaching anxiety earlier this week. I think it's understandable, what with starting two new classes this week and all. But tonight I got to teach my community ed. class, which I started to teach 2 weeks ago. It was great! I love that these people want to learn so much, and they are really fun to work with. Tonight I taught them all a bit about how to use Word to write, and how to attach a Word document to an email (since they email their drafts to me). There were some funny moments. Especially since I couldn't figure out how to turn on the projector at first, and I looked a bit technologically backwards myself! But I really love seeing my students smile during class. I enjoy making a fool of myself sometimes if it lightens the mood and helps my students enjoy learning more. This class really is great! So even though I do sometimes get anxious about teaching, nights like this one will always make me feel glad that I'm a teacher!

Teaching Anxiety?

Last night was not a good night for me. I didn't sleep well. And it was all because I was nervous about starting my class at the ELC (English Language Center) today! I didn't really feel that nervous about starting teaching today. I have felt really excited and happy to teach at the ELC. But I must have had some inner anxiety about it, because it was definitely manifested in my lack of good sleep last night.

First of all, I teach at 8:15am. So I have to get up at 6:00am in order to get to class on time. I've done a couple of practice runs catching the bus, and I was satisfied that I can do this all summer long. However, last night I frequently woke up and looked at the clock. Every single time I looked at the clock, I was worried that I had missed my alarm and that I was going to be late for work.

Secondly, when I was asleep, I was dreaming about my class syllabus and calendar. What!? I mean, doesn't a dream usually have at the very least a plot, even if it is incoherent? My dreams last night did not. I dreamt only in images of my syllabus and calendar. It was kind of like those slideshow presentations, where the images just transition from one to the next. Crazy? I think so!

But my first day of teaching wasn't bad at all! I really think that when this subconscious anxiety works itself out, it will be really easy to get up at 6:00am for work. And I am really going to enjoy this class. It's a reading class, which I've always wanted to teach! And it makes me feel really productive to get going on my day right away. I just hope I don't have any more syllabus dreams! They're really boring!

My New Hair Cut!

Okay, Dave and I couldn't help ourselves! We had so much fun creating all of those pictures to "show off" my hair cut. We actually took some good pictures that same day, and meant to post them a day or two later. Well, this last week has been pretty crazy for us. I was teaching a lot, and I was filmed while teaching so I could be evaluated. Needless to say, I haven't been thinking very much about the blog.

Here are the real hair cut photos. Enjoy!

Another Weekend

I always feel SO happy when it is Friday. It means that I can go home, relax for a couple of days, take several uninterrupted hours to work on homework, see a lot of Dave, and not ride the bus for at least 48 hours...And sometimes Dave and I even go out on a date! Oh, and one more thing, either Dave or I gets paid every Friday, so it's always payday!

This weekend, we are hanging out with some friends. Isaac and Camber are coming over tonight, and we've been invited to Stacy and Mikey's house on Saturday. On Saturday I'll be doing quite a bit of planning for my last week teaching my TTTC class. Today Chan and I planned out our lesson plans and decided on what we were going to do for the test, so now I need to prepare my parts of the lessons and test. And I think this week I'll go to ward choir on Sunday morning. I won't have a primary lesson to prepare since my co-teacher will be teaching this Sunday, and I have really been missing being in a choir. So, all in all, I think it will be a great weekend!

Change

I have been teaching a community ESL class at BYU's English Language Center (ELC). The class is called TTTC. It started about 4 weeks ago, and I have about 1 week of instruction left. The students are adults who are seeking English skills to improve their daily life living in an English speaking country.

After my last week, I will move into teaching another class, which will be a regular class offered to ELC students. These students will be focusing on passing the TOEFL and entering an English speaking university.

There will be a lot of change. The setting will be different. The amount of time that I teach will be different. The teacher that I work with will be different. The students' ages, goals, and maturity will all be different. Some of these changes might be hard to get used to. However, I think that the change will be good for me.

When I'm a teacher...

I'm going to give my students review sheets with some direction for their finals preparation. I'm studying for my last final, and I feel so lost! I'm wondering if it's just too much effort to try to organize my notes and figure out what's important and what's REALLY important (i.e. on the final). But life goes on. By this time tomorrow, I'll have at least started my final, and maybe even finished it. So I guess I just need to get back to studying!

I am thankful for

my job. I like it, and I am gaining a lot of professional experience. I feel very blessed to be involved in teaching English!

Right now I should be doing homework.

But instead, I am looking at past posts on my blog, and thinking about how much I LOVE having a blog!

The other day I attended a conference session that was talking about how blogging can be used by writing teachers. A blog allows students and the teacher to comment on different writing assignments, and gives the students another forum for writing. I think that if I ever teach another writing class, on my own, I might incorporate a class blog into it. I think it would be fun and rewarding.

Having a blog has been a really great experience. I've used it to get to know myself better, write about my frustrations and joys, publish my writing from Two Good Things, and tell jokes. And now I get to share it with Dave. It's just so fun!

School Year Goals

If you remember this post, you'll know that I decided to set some goals for this school year. Here they are:

Work Goals:
1. I will work hard! Next semester, I will possibly be looking for another job, because one of my current jobs conflicts with my class schedule. So I think that I will try to get individual tutoring jobs that I can schedule flexibly around my classes.

School Goals:
2. I will get all As. This is going to be hard. Graduate school has been harder than I thought it would be. But I'm glad that it's hard. I have wanted to go back to school, and I'm willing to put the effort into it. So, all As - that's three this semester and three next semester.
3. I will apply to BYU's MA TESOL program, and be accepted. In order to accomplish this, I'm going to need to do a couple sub-goals:
a. I will find a project that I can do for my masters (They give the option between a thesis and a project.), This will involve talking to a few people down at the ELC to see what needs to be done.
b. I will start writing my letter of intent now, so I can have it looked at and edited by a few people.

Personal Goals:
4. I will journal at least once a week. I blog now, but I can't really say a lot of things on this blog. And blogging on my blog makes me want to read all of the blogs I subscribe to, and that can be a real time-waster during the week.
5. I will run for 20 minutes, three times a week. That is only the commitment of 1 hour per week. I can do that. I need to do that.

Marriage Goals:
6. Dave and I teach the 13-year-olds at church. My goal is that we will prepare good lessons for them that are involving and meaningful.

I yelled at my students today!!

That was the first line of a post I started on Friday. Now it's Monday, and I don't feel like blogging about my Friday frustrations. But, just in case some of you were wondering, this shows that I am not perfect! I was really embarrassed by it, and I was really glad when one of the girls came up to me after class and thanked me for helping them during class. I could tell she said it just to make me feel better, and it worked!

So, last year I had an engagement calendar (a book to keep all of my appointments straight) that was called The Reading Woman. It was a weekly planner that had pictures of women reading throughout. I loved this planner, and I wanted to buy another one for this year. But I use Google Calendar all the time now, which makes a paper planner still useful on some occasions when I'm not near my computer but inconvenient when it's a huge planner that I don't use that often. So, instead of getting another one this year, I decided to cut out the pictures that I liked the best from this year's planner, and creating room on the back to write things down, and using them again this year! I get to see all of the pictures again that I've loved for a while, AND I am reusing instead of throwing away! Sweet!

Here are a few of the pictures from the 2008 calendar that are making it into the 2009 Life, by Merry edition!













This last picture is my favorite. I love the little girl sitting on her mom's lap while she reads. I'm sorry that these are all different sizes, that's the way I could find them on the internet.