Rubrics...and...um..whatnot.

Yes, as you can probably tell from my oh-so-interesting Title, there hasn't been a whole lot of exciting goings ons around here.
I just finished typing my 35th theme rubric comment (for those of you who need a definition of "rubric" (and I did when I read my JacksonFive contract for the first time but now I like saying it - it sounds all official teacher-ish. Anyway, you can check out this groovy website: http://www.teach-nology.com/tutorials/teaching/rubrics/, which uses a lot of big words. Basically a rubric is an assessment of the skills the students learned in class. Like a test, only a lot fancier and harder on the teacher).
Mostly, I meet with the students one-on-one while all the other students watch a movie, and I ask the student questions based on the theme we learned that month. If they answer without any prompting from me, I check the "No Teacher Help" box. If they need a little prompting from me, I check the "Little Teacher Help" box. There's also a "Moderate Teacher Help" and "Must Have Teacher Help" boxes. Then after I figure out where to put all the little checks, I have to type a 4-5 sentence long comment about how the student did in the theme. It takes a lot of my time, especially since I have two afternoon classes now.
That's just the theme rubrics, which we do once a month. Once a semester, we also do general rubrics, which is an overall assessment of their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. It takes a lot of time to assess where each check should go for each student there's like a million little boxes to check. Blah. But at least I don't have to grade homework.
Anyway, I'm caught up for a month at least. Next month the theme rubrics and general rubrics are all due in the same week so I will have over 70 rubric papers and comments to write. That's...a LOT.
But I still like teaching, regardless of the millions of little dancing check marks that are currently floating before my eyes as a result of me staring at them for the past couple of hours.
I picked out my Christmas songs for the JacksonFive christmas program and I start teaching them tomorrow (oh happy! Christmas is starting!). The Dolphin class, year 1, will be singing "I'm the Happiest christmas Tree" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnjGEg0PVo&feature=fvsr and "C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f7SE3zOtXE&p=FF5D74CE72FF8092&playnext=1&index=48
And Bumblebees will be singing: "One King" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OODyWYnkTl8 and "Beautiful Saviour" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCleEjxB-jI

In case you're interested in a sneak peek. And I will be teaching the Bumblebees sign language to both One King and Beautiful Saviour, which will be a lot of work, but both songs are BEAUTIFUL and will be absolutely amazing with the sign language. My co-worker Karen knows sign language so she's an invaluable resource when it comes to things like this. Actually sign language is quite fascination when you learn it. I'm intrigued.
anyhoo, as far as anything else goes, there's not been much else going, really. I'd like to report some adventures, but there haven't really been any. Samson is doing some mischief I hear in the corner so I'm going to go check it out. Hopefully my next post will be more adventurous and interesting. :)

Moon Festival, clean rooms, and (a) typhoon.

Yay! I finally figured out that if I load photos to Blogger in a backwards order than how I want them on my page, then I don't have to scoot them all around after they upload. I'm so brilliant, it's scary sometimes.
I have to give credit where credit is due, however, for these Kenting photos. As I previously mentioned in another post, I forgot my camera in Kenting, so I didn't get hardly any photos of my own. These are borrowed from my roomate Amy. You rock, Amy!
This is one I asked her to take specially for you, my blogging fans. Although my hair is askew and my legs are red as red can be, you can see I really, truly was in Kenting. HAHAHA, you know, in case there were any doubters out there.
The coastline was fantastic. It was a gorgeous scooter drive. And I don't usually say gorgeous. But it was.



Here's one of the beach from a cliffy sort of pullout on the road we were scootering on. Of course, as is usually the case, the real thing was much better than this photo portrays.












Here I am again, this time with a proper peace sign. Because, you know, I am in Taiwan. I can't forget to do a peace sign in my photos.
















Here's one of everybody, and we're all really tiny, but it was the one where everybody's hair looked the best. The wind was vicious (spelling?) up there.












As I mentioned before, one of the scooters broke down. We waited maybe 45 minutes to an hour to get it fixed in a scooter shop in a small nearby town. This is Autumn (my coworker at J5) and I waiting patiently. We are most patient. Mostly all I remember of this episode was the pain I was in already from my sunburnt legs.

I put him also on Facebook, but again here is my oddball kitten, Samson.

This was taken at a recent field trip to the Science Museum with the Bumblebees. The Science museum, as you may have noticed by now if you follow this blog, is a favorite place for field trips, not only for Jackson5, but most other schools and cram schools as well.

It's actually a great museum with very nice, well laid out and interested exhibits, with everything in both chinese and English. This one was about animal communication, which happens to be our theme for this month.

We are hanging out with this super cool peacock, who is, as one girl explained to me, "trying to call his girlfriend with his tail".

This is also how I explained the bullfrogs farther back in this exhibit, who were croaking loudly for mates. I told my kid Mason (there in the middle with the cheesy grin), that the bullfrog was trying to get a girlfriend by croaking. Mason said if he tried to get a girlfriend like that he would get slapped. (he acually didn't say it that way, but he acted it out and it was the same).

Well, you've probably heard news of the typhoon, ol' Mr. Fanapi (or just Fanapi..), who scooted through this weekend. He didn't hit Taichung too hard, actually much less than we expected, as he turned more south than we thought and mostly missed us. We got some wind and rain on Sunday morning, but nothing horrible. The south got a lot of rainfall and some flooding, but nothing like Morakot last year. So, yay!

We were sort of expecting a typhoon day on Monday, though, and didn't get one so all the J5 crew was a little bummed, but we'd rather have a safe typhoon than a terrible destructive one even if it means no typhoon days off of work.

Tomorrow's Moon Festival, and Jimmy explained the story behind moon Festival to me once...and I remember...something about a rabbit...sacrificing himself for a mouse..and an eagle..and then..going to the moon to live forever as a reward..or...something..like that. There's another story too but I forgot it. Anyway... what it DOES mean is a lot of food at work. The student's parents have been bringing SO MUCH stuff for the teachers, and it's a little overwhelming. Moon cakes and sun cakes (which are much better than moon cakes, I think), and cookies, and honey cake, and fruit. oh boy oh boy.

It also means barbecues! and I guess fireworks, unless those were for something else. I heard a lot of fireworks on my way home from work tonight.

We had a barbecue on Sunday, and it was nice but I think I ate something not quite cooked right because on Monday I had a stomach pain all day. Tonight when I went to take out the trash (tonight is..like..Moon festival Eve, I guess..since tomorrow is the holiday), there were about 7 different little barbecue gatherings going on in our courtyard. Families or friends were gathered around food-laden grills in different sections of the yard. I wish I could have taken a picture without looking...like a rude foreigner. Sausages, steak, chicken wings (and feet, and hearts, and..um. other parts), mushrooms, shrimp, corn, bamboo... soooo yummy.

I do miss grilled salmon though.

Um.. well, I suppose there were other things that I could blog about, but my hands are getting sleepy, and Samson is sneaking up on me like he does when he's ready to go in his corner. He tries so hard to sleep right next to me, but he's so loud when he purrs and after about 5 minutes he's so hot and I get annoyed. So I always let him sit there for about 2 minutes, then I pick him up and put him in his "corner" of the bed where he has his special blanket (it's a king sized bed so he practically has his own side). He tries about 5 more times to sneak up and sleep next to me, and I pick him up and plop him back in the corner and then he stays there and sleeps all through the night. He's a good cat.

Ok, well good night! Sorry I'm such a slacker at my blog. :( I'll try....

Samson grows ever larger...

..he is now a fat blob of fur that runs around at warp speed and pounces on everything and even things that are not there. Right now, though, he's a fat blob of fur asleep on my Bible.
My sunburn is getting better and my feet stopped swelling but now I feel rather dragon-ish with the scars and the skin coming off and stuff. It's not nice. Phooey.
Real Classes started today ( as opposed to the Sort of Real Classes that I was teaching in August's summer schedule ), and it's going to be a rough year for the Bumblebees. So much more work to do in so much less time! Whew. But we'll make it.
I taught my Dolphins 'Jesus Loves Me' last Friday. None of them knew it and nobody knew who Jesus was. So it was their very first ever introduction to Jesus. It was really amazing to sing 'Jesus loves me' to 14 wide-eyed 7 year olds and get to be the first one who tells them who Jesus is and that He loves them. It really struck me what a great privilege it is to teach these kids and also a great responsibility to show them the love of Christ and share the Gospel message with them in a way they'll understand. I hope I do it well this coming year.
Well, it's almost midnight. That's when I turn into a pumpkin. *har har har* I'm going to bed.
'til next time.....

All Day Field Trips and a Fuzzy Kitten. and a Sunburn.

Last Wednesday we went on an all-school, all-day field trip to some farm/entertainment park-ish sort of place in Miaoli. I had a bunch of kids to keep track of since I have two after noon classes now. We did lots of fun-ish sort of things like..."making" cookies, which involved squishing cooky crumbs into a wooden mold sort of thing and then banging the mold up-side down on the table to make the "cooky" fall out; making pinwheels, taking a tour of ancient tea-making machines, and watching a great clown/magic/fire show thing, which is where this picture was taken:

This dude is spinning some "glass" (really not glass because he dropped one on accident and it bounced - uh, huh...) bottles that are on fire, and he is blindfolded. It was a pretty impressive show, and as you can see there is a huge clown balloon on the stage.

This is a Bee I caught with my camera. He was a bugger, too. I chased him on 7 flowers before I got this picture.

Here's my "cooky-making" set-up. One box for cookys - check. One cup of crumbs - check. One wooden spoon mold thing - check. They're smiley faces.

Here's my Dolphin class! Cute, aren't they?

---aand, here are the Bumblebees, taller than ever and mostly paying attention to the camera. That little orange shirted kid on the left is Louie and he actually belongs to the Dolphin class. His English is lower than the other Dolphins and he I guess didn't understand the "move this way, Dolphins!" to get them all out of the way.

Here're two of my Dolphins, Little Shawn (we also have a Big Shawn...) , in orange and Hugo in white. They are showing off their tea leaves. Little Shawn is a silly, very friendly outgoing child who speaks pretty good English for his grade and loves to talk to me. He also loves to be silly when he shouldn't and gets in trouble a lot. But he's very sweet. He made me a paper heart at home last week and presented it to me first thing the next morning. Aw...

This is Samson, chillin' with the Word.

He's got to check everything out, you know. Even the camera.

This is one of only two pictures I took in Kenting this past weekend. The day we went out to the beach and on a scenic scooter drive, I forgot my camera in my room! *bad Sharon, bad Sharon!* I tried to take with my cell phone but didn't work. Phooey.

This is my and my friend Annie diggin' some groovy hats in the night market.

Kenting is in the southernmost tips of Taiwan and has some beautiful beaches. A couple of cell groups went on a weekend trip for fun. We spent most of the day Saturday at the beach and then went on a scenic drive around that area on rented scooters (we also had a slight delay with a broken down scooter and had to get that fixed somehow out in the middle of nowhere, but that's another story and I'm kinda tired, and it's a long one).

I applied sunblock once before going in the water. We were in the sun for .... a looong time...like...4 hours? at least. I "snorkeled" a little bit (not like, really professional...like with a kiddie snorkel), but I saw some Nemo fish and his buddies. Well, apparently my sunblock got washed off fairly soon after I was in the water, and I ended up with the mother of all Sunburns. My legs are deep dark red from the mid thigh down (I had a skirt Thing over my swimsuit) and although my back and shoulders are burnt, my legs are way ouchier. They're swollen and extremely painful - on Saturday night I nearly passed out in the night market and on Sunday I had to take ibuprofin just to stand and there was still pain. I went to Dr. today and he gave me cream and pain meds, but is still very painful.

Lesson learnt. Re-apply, re-apply, re-apply.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

My students told me I looked like a pig, and some other students said "Tr. Sharon SO SCARY!!!"

I was like a walking Sun Safety ad at the school and everywhere else I went today. They were whispering - look what happens when you don't cover up in the Sun. Hrmphphph.

I won't post a picture. The kids were right. Tr. Sharon really is SO SCARY.

Well on that note, i'm going to take those meds and go to bed...

good night.

Teaching, and such

One of the teachers at my school gave me a disc today with some photos on it from last year. The co-teachers are supposed to take photos in the classroom all the time so they can give discs to the parents at the end of the year and show them what their kid has been doing and how much fun it was. (ha, ha...)

Anyhoo, it had about 17 candids that I had no idea were taken of me so I thought I'd post a few to show what I do every day.

Okay, that last one isn't JacksonFive. That was Amanda and my drama workshop at the youth camp last month. We had almost 60 students. Whew!

Ok, that's all. I survived my first week of August - 3 more to go! I started speeding up the matrerial for my super smart Dolphin class and it's going much better.

I'm tired and hungry. I'm going to go forage. Zai jian!

of Dolphins...and...surprises...and...stress...

Hallo Blog Followers.

As I write this I'm pondering a strange situation that I hadn't thought about. I requested a year 1 class this year at JacksonFive for several reasons: 1.) They're incredibly cute and small and I loved the projects and the cute little basic English things they get taught in this year and I liked the idea of being their first English teacher ever (actually I suppose that was two reasons..anyway.) 2.) As I taught the Bumblebees last year (year 2) I wished many, many times that I had known exactly what they learned and went through the year before so I could plan better. I never got to confer with the year 1 Bumblebee teacher because he went to Hong Kong before I got here last year.

Well, today was my second day with my year 1 class, the Dolphins, and I've got a problem (a rather good problem, I suppose, but it means a lot of time for me..)

They are in a year 1 class, but all but two of them know all the things they're supposed to learn this month and many things they're supposed to learn in year 2. Over half the class has already had 2-3 years of ESL classes or kindergarten and I have three students who can effectivly use the word "ceremony" and "graduation" and many, many other words they're not supposed to know yet. They're not supposed to know ANY English words yet except maybe "hello" and "goodbye"!! There are 11 students in this class.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

I am not any of their first English teacher, they all have previous ESL training. So my simple lesson plans that I modeled after all the other first year classes are far too simple for these kids, and they are starting to complain that they already know their alphabet so why are we spending a whole class period learning one letter (as per the JacksonFive curriculum). After yesterday's class I had a parent ask the same question.

So I have to amp it up and come up with harder worksheets, more challening lessons, and way more material. And I spent sooo much time this July at home planning these lessons and I can't even use them anymore!

I'm so stressed out and on top of that, my Bumblebees decided to have drama and disrespect and behaviour issues (they are undergoing a lot of transitions this year in Chinese school: going from year 2 to year 3 in Chinese school is a HUGE transition and takes a lot of time for most students to adjust to the enourmous difference in classwork and homework). And they are growing up so they have that attitude thing. *sigh*

But, the Dolphins are reeeallly cute, and we played some games and did a song and stuff and they thought that was really a lot of fun. They like to do activee wiggly things even if they already know the stuff the active wiggly things are supposed to be teaching them. So.... yeah! I'm pretty sure with the right planning I can really take advantage of this and Dolphins can be one of the top classes at JacksonFive, like...ever. But with Bumblebee class too.... planning is very stressful for me right now.

AAUGH.

Here's a photo of my cat, Samson. He's fuzzy. I like him.

He's my buddy.

So, that's been my two days so far. ONLY TWO DAYS!! AUUGGHHH... how will I ever make it through this year?!

Realizing you're way underprepared for something is not a great feeling. Jai yo, me... (Go, go, me..)

Guess I'd better get to work.

Samson

Hallo faithful blog followers!
I have a cat. A kitten, more exactly. I've always wanted my own cat, but couldn't because of landlords and allergic roommates, or different other living situations. So I checked with my roomates 'bout a week ago and they said if I got a cat they were fine with that.
So a couple days later Jimmy and I went on a "date" to the 24 hour pet store (we went at like..midnight. Jimmy works pretty late so we do what we can to hang out...and the pet store is kind of fun. They have a lot of puppies. And we like to watch the fishes) Anyway, since I was now "free" to get a cat I went to check out the kittens. And I started playing with one in the window. And I knew I wanted him.
He's a little 10 week old black and white Persian kitten that's supposedly a purebred (he'd better be for what I payed for him), and he's very playful but also likes to come sleep on your stomach when he's tired. He likes to jump on my bed and stare at me while I'm sleeping which is kind of creepy to wake up to. He's a very good cat. I'm pleased. Even when I gave him a bath, he stood in the tub all well behaved and didn't try to bite or scratch. I didn't have to hold him down at all, he didn't even try to jump out of the tub. He did meow pitifully during the whole process, and looked kind of miffed afterwards, but I was still very impressed.
I named him Samson because he is very hairy. I have to brush him every day.
I have pictures, but it's really late now so I'll post them another time. But take my word for it. He's cuter than 99% of the cats in the whole world. He could be a kitten model.
School starts on Monday. I went in to prep some stuff this afternoon and was a little overwhelmed at all the stuff I have to do. Even though I've been lesson planning all month, there's still a load of prep work for August. August is still summer schedule, so that means more classes and waaay more of those classes are "theme" classes (don't follow a book which means I have more prep and planning to do). I hope I don't get sick.
Well, it's been a nice laid back July vacation, but next year...I'm going somewhere. I don't care where. I'm takin' a vacation.
August, here I come!