Teaching Fifth Graders

I’m not new in teaching. I gave a private English course to a second grader when I was in tenth grade. I also taught a 19 year old boy to prepare for SNMPTN when I was in fourth semester. Not to mention the microteachings I had done for Teaching Media and English Teaching and Learning classes. However, for the English for Teaching Young Learners class I’m taking this semester, I must teach in a real classroom, in a real school, with real students. I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t freak me out. I’m really nervous. What if the students don’t like me and give me troubles during the class? What if I do something wrong, like pronouncing a word wrong and they end up pronouncing it wrong too? I took Teaching English to Young Learners class last semester, and from that class I can conclude that teaching children is not easy and we have to be very careful. They’re still in the phase of immitating and if we do something wrong, they can carry that wrong thing all their life.

This Wednesday, it was Ijal’s turn to teach in the fifth grade in Cipaganti Elementary. I myself got the third turn, so I will teach in the next two weeks. Ijal did a very good job, by the way. He could grab the students’ attention and kept them excited during the whole lesson (something I’m not sure I could do when it comes my turn to teach them). Ijal used puppets, the “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” song, and Simon Says game. His lesson’s focus was on listening, whilst mine would be on reading. Reading; sounds boring huh? A lot of people don’t like reading nowadays, especially children. So I have to come up with a really good idea to make the lesson fun and interesting (since they are the keys of teaching children).

Now, now… Do you guys have any idea to help me out?

PS. I changed my header and tweaked some stuffs yesterday. Do you like it?