First Week

The first week of school is in the books!  Whew!

By the end of the week, it was hard to say who was more exhausted - teachers or students.  Overall, though, it went smoothly.

I have 3 sections of German 1 this year, all of which are full with 31 or 32 students.  I didn't teach German 1 last year, and it's fun to have students who are just starting out in the language.  It's also tiring because everything is unfamiliar to them, so I spend a lot of the first week explaining things and teaching procedures.  There's also a really wide range of students - some are 9th graders who have never taken a language before, and others are 11th graders who have had several years of another language.  It's challenging, but good.

In contrast, all but 3 of the German 3/4 students were my students last year since I taught all of the sections of German 2 and German 3.  So, they are very familiar to me, and we really hit the ground running.  I've only seen them twice so far since those classes meet on the B day of our A/B block schedule, but we have already interviewed and introduced a classmate, reviewed the Perfekt, Präteritum, and Plusquamperfekt, and read half of a story about a girl's summer break trip.  

And, all of the students at my school have now received their laptops.  On Friday I had my first year classes all using them to access Quizlet, and everyone (except the 1 student who left his at home) was able to log on and use Quizlet without any internet problems.  I was amazed!

Up next week: pretests, using the new digital textbooks, and each level's first quiz.