Negotiating

I was woken up by the hammerers again today and I've been like a bear with a sore head all day because of it.

I had my Spanish lesson this morning and I could not concentrate at all. I couldn't remember any of the vocabulary I've spent hours learning, I couldn't remember the simplest verb (to be, to have, to know etc.) and, in all honesty, I hated being there. I know I'm not a good language learner or a good student but when I have made the effort to learn, it really annoys me that I can't use the damn language.

From there to the teachers' room and an afternoon spent planning.

I may have alluded here to difficulties I have with one particular class. Teenagers who have a very high level of English and absolutely no self-control. When I'm trying to teach them, I often feel like a fox surrounded by a pack of hounds which are about to rip me to bits. I can be talking to one student, answering their question, and another will start talking as if they are the only one in the room with me - and then get upset when I don't respond immediately. Anyway, I turned the tables on them (in the nicest of ways) last Wednesday. We only have ten weeks until the end of term, so I asked them to plan what they wanted to do in the lessons until then. Being a responsible teacher, I did provide a series of questions to guide them but then I left them to it (not that I left the room, you understand). In all honesty, what they came up with is a bit of a nightmare - bits of everything with no common thread linking them together. However, that is my job so I've spent today looking at what they want to do and turning it into proper lessons. Hopefully, I won't be hearing "Why are we doing this?/Do we need it?/What's the point of this?" again but I'm not holding my breath.

On a related note, my adult class at the same level also opted to plan the rest of the term but their plan is much more coherent. Rather than chose things from the coursebook, they chose themes and asked for vocabulary and exam type tasks (including writing, which surprised me). Much easier for me and much more meaningful for them.

Both of these mean I don't get much of a weekend this weekend but it will make things much easier for the rest of the term.

On a completely unrelated note, I haven't had a lot of energy over the last week or so and I've been feeling quite miserable. I checked my biorhythms yesterday and everything is negative but (and here's the good news) they are on the rise so things should be looking up soon.