Keeping it simple and going SLOW among other things...

This undoubtedly has been the biggest challenge to me in my quest this year.  I feel like I started the year out very simply and went very slow.  However, the more exhausted I've gotten, the sloppier I've gotten.  (Surprised right?)  After a much needed spring break, I feel like my brain is almost a brain again and not some mush in my head, so I've been much more able to reflect on what I'm doing in my classroom.

I'm really trying to keep it about the students in my classroom.  It's tough to do that if you also want to keep it simple and go slow.  That's a lot to remember.  It doesn't sound like much to my non-teaching fiancé, but we know it is.  It's difficult because not only do we need to keep these things in mind, but we also have no idea what the students are going to throw at us in their responses to questions. 

Despite TPRS being a more difficult (and effective) way to teach students to acquire language, I've noticed that if I have enough sense to reflect back on a class period rather than just discount it as a "crash and burn" then I can be proud of the fact that my students with learning disabilities and students who have failed in other classes are thriving in mine.  I can also look back and realize my students are able to decode anything someone throws at them.  It's a beautiful thing to watch my first years, but it's sometimes a challenge to look at my third years through the same lens because they haven't had TPRS ever before so where my first years are thriving, my third years are throwing in the towel.  Interesting...

So anyway, I'm focusing on keeping things simple and going SLOW and one of my classes even called me on it today.  Good for them.  As long as I keep working, they keep winning.