lauantai 5. lokakuuta 2013

Last Russian lesson

I had my final Russian lesson today. The students have studied all the material that will be covered in the exam, so I was to repeat the important things on the last double lesson. In addition, the teacher said that they had already practiced many things already. I felt like making mountains out of molehills - how could I spend 90 minutes from scratch?
I prepared some own exercises, based on the ones I had done earlier with the students. I also created a question box. The students could ask anything about Russian language and culture from me or the supervising teacher, and we would answer to the best of our ability. If there was plenty of time, we could also watch a short video about Russian culture. I was afraid there would be a lot of extra time in my hands.
I was more nervous than on previous occasions, because the real teacher would assess me. Also the situation that nothing new was to be taught, was challenging. Was it boring to repeat the same exercises than before, even though they were new.
The class went quite ok. We had plenty of things to do and did not even have time to watch the video. I repeated the main grammatical points, such as alive accusative case, noun plural form, and the numbers 20-100. After each bit the students did a written and oral exercise. For example, they were to compile a 4-course menu and practice ordering the food. Then they were to assign prices for the dishes and have another conversation.
Finally the students turned in their questions into the question box. I had suspected earlier that they are shy of asking things, so this gave them an opportunity to ask anything anonymously, and also it would show us, what they students were interested in. The students turned in almost 10 questions. One asked what's the best part of the Russian culture, another one asked what kind of music the Russians listen to. Someone wanted to know the Russian rouble exchange rate, and another one, if everything must be hand-written, because there are the block capitals, and the handwriting font, and these two look different. Someone asked the classic Finnish question: What do the Russians think of the Finns? The questions were honest and profound, so we tried to give deep answers, as well.
One third of my teaching practice is now completed. We stayed in the classroom for almost 2 more hours, while I received feedback, discussed the lesson and chatted for quite some time.

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