Felicia Black
Felicia Black
South Africa 2011- 2012
VIEW FINAL REPORT
I am a recent Belmont graduate (Class of 2011) and I am going back to South Africa. I first went to South Africa in the fall of my junior year at Belmont and I had so much fun I decided to apply for the Lumos award and have been lucky enough to go again! Check out my previous blog at http://coming2sa.blogspot.com/ I will also be updating that blog as I return to South Africa so check ‘em out! Read More About Felicia →

“Chaotic Term”

If you would have asked me last term I would have said that it was chaotic. But comparatively speaking, this term has been much more chaotic. School has been ending much earlier for various reasons testing, flooding, etc. It has been our jobs a lot harder when we find out that school is closing at 1 when it normally closes at 2:30. We’ve had to have a lot more flexibility then we did last term.

In addition, I have also been lacking a lot of motivation this term. I think it’s because I feel like so little progress has been made. It’s hard to see it, you know? I don’t really work with the same groups. I work with some groups one week and then others the next so it’s really hard to track the progress being made. The thing that does keep me going are the kids. There are some particular ones that hold a special place in my heart so it makes it easier for me to keep going.

Some of the chaotic things I actually don’t mind. For example, one day when we were supposed to have workshop, the choir was practicing. Most of my students are in the choir so workshop didn’t happen. Instead, Joel and I got to enjoy the choir which I absolutely love. They are so amazing. I love hearing them sing and I even know some of the songs now even though I have no idea what they’re saying.

Some things are going very well though. I think that overall I am improving as a teacher. I still know for sure that I want to teach math and I am getting better at explaining things and getting the kids to understand. For example, I had to teach the kids angles and I used my arms to make different angles and got them to do the same. The kids love playing games so I try to incorporate that in my lesson as much as possible. Then when it came to area and perimeter I made several squares and rectangles and got the kids to use blocks to figure out the area and the perimeter. They love things like that and I find it easier to be creative with math than it is for English. I find it hard to make English hands on. I was able to find a good activity to do with prepositions though and that seem to work really well. I would give the kids an instruction and the kid would have to follow it correctly in order to stay in the game. Basically they were passing the ball around. To make it harder once they got a hang of the instructions, I had them identify the prepositions. That seem to work fairly well, which was encouraging.

One more thing, did I mention dance club here? I’m not sure but one of the teachers and I were supposed to start a dance club at the school but that sadly hasn’t happened yet. There was the broken copier one week, then there was the flooding at school (more on that later). Basically it hasn’t happened yet and I doubt we’ll be able to start it before the term ends, which sucks because I was super excited about it. Let’s hope next term is a bit less chaotic and the dance club can actually start. 

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