How to Teach!
By: Arielle
So Irma has kinda messed up this week… To those of you who are student teachers you will probably understand my struggle. I taught vocabulary for the first time on Friday and I have to admit teaching is a lot hard than it looks. Reading theories and books on “how to teach” don’t really help you when you’re the one standing in front of the room. I also realized that the powerpoint we use for lessons are way to visual for me. I did practice before, but I couldn’t really see the actual slides when I was actually teaching. I contacted NOAH to see if they could connect me with some PWAs who also happened to be professors. It’s not super common to have albinism so there wasn’t;t one who taught languages (that we know of). However I talked to a professor from Tulane, who is visually impaired herself, and teaches teachers of the visually impaired. She gave me some really good tips: balls to through at students, have a list of names to call on for every day, use coloring books for vocabulary and hold them up (while I write in huge letters the name of the item. She also recommended that I learn some braille. I am more than willing to do this right now since, I cannot really get away at looking at my notes. This is something I’ve just struggled with and I cannot think of a visual way to solve it. I ordered a slate and stylus through National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and I’m still in the process of looking for a Brailler.I am also very lucky to have a teacher of the visually impaired come and teach me the alphabet and some symbols for free. I let her know that I would pay her, but she refused. She is also asking around if there is anyone who would have a Brailler.
Hi Arielle! My name is Keylee, I’m from North Carolina. I’m a senior so I’ll be going off to college next year, and I want to be a teacher as well. I want to be a music educator, hopefully at the collegiate level someday. It’s encouraging to hear about how well you’ve overcome challenges associated with teaching, and I hope that I can overcome them as well as you have once I get there. It sounds like you’re doing a fantastic job!! What do you love most about teaching?
As of now,I really like to see students get excited with the subject that I happen to teach. I just did Kahoot! for a exam review and they went wild. I’m mostly observing this semester and I will slowly start to lecture on my own. The followin year I will be an instructor of record for elementary French. I just started teaching last Friday and I’ll be teaching 30 minutes worth of vocabulary and grammar. So I will be keeping things updated regarding my TAship.