Claudia Posch

I had to teach the students the passive voice. It was my second grammar lesson. The first one was about the reported speech. The lesson was a mixture of theoretical input and exercises. Some students did understand the structure very fast, but some other students had their problems with the passiv voice. At the end of the lesson nearly every student understood the main rules of the passive voice. I think grammar must be drilled.

My colleague Lisa and I decided to do a conversation lesson. So we divided my class into to groups. One group worked with Lisa and one group worked with me. The topic was "friends". We started the lesson with collecting adjectives which a good friend must have. After this, we discussed the adjectives. Then the students should do a questionnaire about "what kind of friend are you?". The students really liked this exercise and they loved to discuss their results.

In one of my first lesson we talked about films and many students said that their favourite film was Titanic. So I decided to do an "Titanic lessons". First I put some facts on the blackboard and the students had to guess what could be the topic of the lesson. The quiz didn't last long, because the students managed to guess right quickly. Then we build a "Sesselkreis" and we read an information text about the tragedy of the Titanic. The first 30 minutes of the lesson were really good, but then the students were not able to concentrate themselves anymore and one male student interrupted the lesson, because he was late. I tried to get the students attention again, but it was nearly impossible. It's a fact that this class is not very good in open learning, because they are not used to this form of learning.

After the easter holidays we went to the Vienna Uno City. We had a bilingual guided tour there. The three tour guides divided us in three groups. I think my group was the most exhausting one for the guides, because two very difficult an inpolite students joined this group. One female students was laughing the whole time when the guide talked about drugs and addiction. All in all it was a interesting excursion.

My "Praxislehrerin" decided to leave me alone for a couple of minutes, because she wanted me to learn how to handle a difficult situation with students. The first minutes everything was ok, the students worked, but suddenly one male student started to behaving in a very bad way. He was inpolited and ignored my instructions. I tried to be friendly, but then I explained him that I was his teacher and that he had to treat me respectfully. After this admonition, he started working and stopped annoying me.

I was really nervous! The topic of the lesson was "movies". I started the lesson with pictures of Hollywood and movies. The students should write down everything the associate with the topic. After a few minutes I started to enjoy teaching, instead of being nervous. The first lesson succeeded and the students accepted me.

Today's lesson was an exercise lesson, because next week there will be the second English test. So my colleague Lisa and I prepared a "Stationenbetrieb" for today's lesson. It was a successful lesson. The students had fun and they worked really diligent.

I hope the pupils will enjoy our lesson on wednesday. The topic of the lesson will be "Rooms in a house" and so the children will have to do an exciting exercise: they should furnish a house on the blackboard. I think this will be a very cool and extraordinary lesson.

I really like the wegerer website (http://www.wegerer.at/), because you can find a lot of useful material on it. There are many worksheets and games which you can use in class.