Preparing for the classes

This week I have been preparing the English lesson for the coming three weeks to come. Preparing the lessons is painstaikingly slow, taking hours and hours. In additing, I cannot access Moodle, which is the e-learning environment. I have received a temporary one-month ID's, but for some reason they are not working. In other words, I am unable to see the materials that are already on the website. Luckily I have some material as paper copies and transparencies, so I have built two first lessons based on those. My supervising teacher will attend the first lesson, which is good, so I can have some support and advice during the class.

I feel a bit nervous about the coming lessons. I feel that I "should" be an interesting personality, at ease with the students, and able to control the class. Somehow encountering the students makes me uneasy, and of course it's due to the fact that I don't know them -yet. On the other hand, I aim to create some kind of connection with the students, and I believe it is key to successful teaching.

When I gave the Russian lessons, I made a bit effort of having interactive tasks and sharing interesting stories and experiences to the students. Now it looks like the method of working is not going to be so interactive and that I could not give so much of myself, so I would be just teaching routinely, even though teaching anything but routine for me.

At the moment I feel that teaching is not going to be something I could enjoy in the long run. I would be exhausted simply because the preparation, let alone the teaching, and as a teacher in a university of applied sciences, I should have time and be able to do both preparing and executing the teaching. However, I really enjoyed having private students, so perhaps a smaller group would be ideal for me. I feel like resuming my current position full time after the teaching practice as a secretary will be a bliss. I just show up in the office and complete the tasks that will come ahead. Let's see how these few weeks will change my experience.