Thursday 09/10/08 – Prac Block Day Four

I feel like I’m still falling down a rabbit hole and there is no hope of a light at all. Welcome to Prac. Macgregor State High School is a large school, consisting of over 1000 students, grades eight to twelve. Located right next to Garden City, many of the students use public transport as their means of commuting to school and as a result, many of the students are also late to school.

I am with the Japanese teacher, Tara Jenkins, for grade nine Japanese, the Music Head of Department (HOD), Sandy Armstrong, for grade 11 Music and another music teacher, Sharron Collis, for grade eight Music Technology. My staff room is with the other LOTE teachers (about three times the size of the music staffroom (for the same number of teachers). Languages offered here are Chinese, German and Japanese.

My lead in days were hectic and rushed, most of the students were doing exams and revision. The Japanese teacher wasn't sure what to do next, so even though I planned a unit in the holidays, I don’t really know the students very well and we’ve had to completely re-do everything. One of the craziest things is that she doesn’t seem to be very organised at all. I’d like to have a plan for the next eight weeks done out and on my desk – ready for small modifications as they occur (learning difficulties, unexpected deaths, the school burning down), but there is nothing like that here and my attempts to create one have been foiled at every possible moment.

The music department is significantly better, although still experiencing the same types of upheaval that the LOTE department is. The original music HOD left suddenly sometime during the year (middle of last term perhaps?) and as a result the music department went through a serious rework of their staff, what classes each teacher has, where the curriculum is etc. The new Music HOD (Sandy) is organised and only has two classes now that she is a HOD but she also has to rework all of the task sheets at every year level because someone in some office somewhere has decided the CCE (Common Curriculum Elements) need to be listed on the Task Sheets (because that just might be the first thing that students look for).

Sharron, during the reorginisation of the music department found her contact work doubled and all of a sudden teaching grade eight music technology. To give you some idea of Sharron’s reaction to this, I asked her yesterday if she had an email that I could contact her on and she laughed. She is a very lovely woman and quite a good teacher, but music technology is not her strong suit.

This week, I watched, supervised, team-taught and took a number of different classes. Monday started with the grade eight music technology. These guys were practicing for their performance (on keyboard (that’s where the technology comes in)) of the Man From Snowy River theme. They spent seventy minutes practicing/making sounds on the keyboard. I really liked the way that Sharron opened the lesson by telling the students what was going to happen, and then ending the lesson with a focus of what they will be doing next lesson.

I then had year 11 music with Sandy. She look the class, while I memorized the twenty-two students names, giving them back their composition results, making sure that they understood their next unit and also writing out goals for their performance unit. This music class is really talented and quite good and respectful.

I then observed grade 11 Japanese, which I pretty much don't remember any of now and the grade nine Japanese class → These guys had a revision lesson on their hiragana and combined sounds (having done quite badly on both on their recent test). They are a bit of a strange class – apparently some of the students had only done Japanese for six months in grade eight and some of them have only taken it up this year while others have come from primary schools where they did it from grade six. It’s really hard to cater to all the different levels of ability.

After that, I had two spares (WOAH! Spares!) in which I planned lessons for Japanese the next day.

Tuesday started with a spare, where I revised everything that I had planned for Japanese. Then I taught the grade nine Japanese class. I did a lesson on numbers and kanji. The students got through everything maybe only 10 mins faster than I expected, so I just played a game at the end. The lesson on the whole went well, some times I need to remember to slow down and write stuff on the board – even though I don’t like to be slow, it’s a good thing for the students → something that I’ll learn as I practice I guess. My other problems came from not really knowing the class. I still didn’t really know which students would respond in which ways.

My supervising teacher (for Japanese, Tara) gave me a run down of the lesson → pretty much telling me what I already knew. Her suggestions were things that were related to knowing the class better, which I can’t do until I’ve taught/observed them more. Bit of catch 22 really.

The year 11 class are very chatty and some of the students tend to use Japanese as a bludge. They are all able to do the work, but I think Tara’s disorganisation lets her down and while she fusses around trying to pull out sheets and find the work, they chat and then continue chatting. Also, most of Tara’s instructions are given while fussing around, so they don't seem directed at the students at all, and this just tells the students that they can keep on chatting.

I then had music, grade 11’s. Sandy ran a discussion on good rehearsal techniques and collated all of the student responses → easy way to do a lesson on rehearsal techniques without actually having anything planned. I’m looking forward to doing an actual listening lesson with the students next lesson! Exciting! (I’ll get on typing up that lesson plan as soon as I’ve reflected and evaluated and what not here and then looked at my overviews and resources and what ever else I’ve got to do :P)

The final class of Tuesday was Music Technology. The students kept practicing and although Sharron wanted to start doing their performance grading, most of them didn’t do it. It did keep the practice fairly focused though, the students knowing that eventually they’d have to go play for their teacher – which was good considering it was the last class of the day.

The staff meeting after school (every first Tuesday of the month) only went until about 4:00. There was year level meetings first (3:10 to 3:30) and then the actual staff meeting. Quite different to my last school, but a fairly boring and completely irrelevant staff meeting none the less. ☺

Wednesday the Music Tech kids did their performances – everyone except one girl went I think (yay!). I then watched another lesson of grade 11 Japanese where the kids talked (and slept) and Tara revised their verbs with them.

The grade nine Japanese class, I had actually planned for, but I didn't end up teaching. I wanted to see how Tara would give the students new content and also get to know the students a bit better. I think I finally did that – which was good! They began to learn how to say the time and ask each other what the time is. We also made clocks which we can use again for different activities.

My final class for the day was year 11 music and Sandy was away. Sharron was the sub teacher, so she just let me have the floor. They were only practicing for their performances, but it was good to be able to roam around and get to know them and their instruments more.

Thursday started with assembly, students got prizes and were roused on for coming to school late. I now have spares until my grade eight music tech class in 30 mins! Hooray!


I missed the bus for ice skating and so now I have all afternoon free to plan more lessons! Bit of shame that I missed the bus, I was looking forward to being some where the is not Macgregor and also talking to Tara about Japanese plans for next week, but oh well! Such things can not be changed.

My music lesson went well, although the students were a bit distracted at the beginning. Also, quite a few of them found Sibelius too hard to comprehend, and as such, we did not get much done. Some of the students had computer problems which I couldn’t fix (log in/password changes) and others just didn't really want to work. It dosent’ help that the lesson is the last one of the day before sport – which a lot of the students are looking forward to.

In reflection, I need to have a small activity at the start to get them focused and then clear instructions ready to go for the next part. Otherwise they get a bit lost and distracted. After the lesson, I chatted with Sharron who also suggested to do a group activity at the start to get them focused but otherwise said the lesson was really well done. (yay!)