My students changed my class time...

So, the begining of this week we got a new schedule from Maggie. Due to a scheduling conflict with another teacher, they switched one of my classes on Friday with my class on Thursday. I didn't think anything of it, and just continued on teaching when they told me to.

Today, in my class, there were supposed to be 125 students in there. I was shocked when there were only 35. I asked where everyone was at. The leader of my class told me that they were all in another class. Well, clearly this was the best time for my class to be moved to. So, then the class leader said that this class will be moved to Monday afternoon next week and then will be switched to Wednesdays. I was a bit stumped as to why a student would have this information and not me. Oh well...hopefully this means that all of my students will be able to attend this class in the future.

After class was done, Meghan and I came back to our apartment and went out for dinner. Nothing really to exciting.

Life is kind of dull here right now. We are just trying to play catch up because we did not get through all of the paper grading/correcting that we should have over break. Therefore, we somewhat have double work for grading becuase we have more papers being turned into us this week! Oh well, that means an uneventful weekend full of lounging around in pajamas and grading assignments! I guess a lazy weekend once in a while isn't too bad of a thing.

I did borrow an idea for my midterm exams for my students. I will be giving this out to my students next week, and then the midterm will be the middle of November (3rd week of November). This midterm was actually an idea that one of the other foreign teachers in the CCEP program presented during our training session. It is where a student will research a famous person (either past or present) in America. This can range from a celebrity to a political leader. Then, they will present a first person speach and will give the speach acting as that person infront of the class. They will be someone a "wax figurine" of that famous person. Each student will speak for 45 seconds. I will allow my freshman students to write out their speech for the midterm then at their speach (which will be a different style) at the end of the semester they are only allowed to use note cards. Then, my sophmores are able to use notecards for the midterm and no notecards for the final. So, this weekend I will be creating the rubric for this midterm and then discussing it with students. I will be doing one as an example for my students. I have the weekend to figure out which "famous person" I want to "be" to show my classes the expectations that I have.

That's about it. Hope everything is good for all of you.

I did add about 50 photos onto my photo site (www.zasinchina.shutterfly.com). I know that I promised more, but I was having difficulty getting them uploaded. Hopefully more to come this weekend.