Reflection on today's session.

Reflection on today
The thought of walking into class today was actually a pretty daunting prospect. Having spent Sunday night engrossed in everyone’s language stories, I was pretty much in awe of the rest of my classmates, and a little concerned at their reactions to my comparatively dull attempt. Thankfully, as soon as I crossed the threshold, it was clear that these concerns were unnecessary.

The first thing I learnt today is that all teachers are human (and not superhuman), even teachers who teach teaching, and that everyone has rubbish, rainy mornings and runs late for important commitments, not just me. And thank god that we can all empathise with each other!

After the initial reading of the scheme of work, I had a typically interesting, insightful and amusing discussion with Liane about how we’d adapt it to Primary school children. On reflection, I’m always pleasantly surprised with how comfortable I feel in contributing to our class discussions, and I enjoy each one more and more, for the variety of ideas that are offered.

When I got into Liane’s car at 7.45 this morning, the thought of ‘story time’ would have filled me with fear, because, if it hadn’t been for our invigorating class discussion, I think I would have fallen asleep as soon as the lights had gone out (due to not waking up properly after a bit of an alarm clock cock up). Instead, I was pretty enthralled by the story and particularly by its blood-thirsty descriptions. Having been diabolical at ‘Listening Comprehensions’ at school, I was surprised by how much of the detail I could remember, although I felt like I left out most of the drama when I attempted to retell it. I found it really useful to discuss and write down the differences between spoken and written English. I also learnt two new words today (endophoric and exophoric, which my spell check is now telling me are spelt incorrectly).

I found the information about language acquisition fascinating and it brought back memories of a few elements of my developmental psychology modules. I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of it and to researching and writing the article.

I went away feeling excited, yet again, about how this course can shape me as a teacher, and about the prospect of another few chapters of Pride and Prejudice on the bus journey home (not that I don’t relish my usual rides in with Alice, Jo and Liane!).

Honest and engaging, though I do rather resent not being thought of as superhuman, not least because it suggests that my usual weekend attire of tights and underpants outside them might not be understood by everyone...