Monday, September 17, 2012

paparazzi photos!

Guess who's the dork in the blue on the left with her mouth wide open?? Yep!! Me!!



Officially on the TIUA Website under the Faculty Tab on the BOTTOM click GTFs!


Where's Eva? 10 points if you can find me.

This was taken back in June when we were in Tokyo for the reunion...
The Willamette University Reunion is this weekend!!! :)

A day in volunteerism class...


What a great start to the week! Today I led majority of the class time in several activities in the Volunteerism class.

We worked on predicting skills, word fluency, vocabulary, comprehension skills, identifying main ideas, and pronunciation. AND we ran out of time to review and have a closure activity. :( I will continue to finish reviewing and check for understanding on Wednesday.  Time went by so quickly!! Some activities did take longer than expected, but I am getting used to that. There are things I would like to improve in my teaching. How I word my questions, and how I check for understanding.  I think I could have done better by asking questions that show the students comprehend the article, and I could have had them fill something out as we read the article about each paragraph.  In the end they would do a summary of the whole article. Do you think that would help??? 

Anyhoo... The more that I am guiding activities in the classroom the more I am able to learn what could work and what I need to do better. In the back of my mind I am constantly thinking about what to do that could work when I am in Japan teaching. I am getting more and more excited, and with that I am still nervous!! I am very grateful for these months of training at TIUA before I head out to TIU. It is such an amazing experience!! 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

New beginnings...

My apologies for the lack of posts!! The summer came and went so quickly...

Visiting Japan was absolutely a blessing! It was amazing to have the opportunity to travel and network with many great people.

Yes, the school year has started over here at TIUA/ Willamette University in Salem, Oregon... We are moving into our third week of classes tomorrow!! Who would have thought?

I am co-teaching Vocabulary Building Strategies, and Volunteerism with a Focus on Teen Pregnancy. I am working with two amazing mentor teachers from TIUA, and I am very lucky to have such wonderful mentors that are so great! The past few weeks have been a big adjustment to working with Japanese students, working with mentor teachers, learning about campus-life, getting used to my work schedule, and of course the great balancing act between work and life outside of work!  I am fortunate to live close to work and I can commute with ease. Very very lucky... I am learning a lot from my coworkers, mentor teachers, students, and administrative staff! Everyone is very helpful and want us to get a good experience working at TIUA.  I think that the experience for the fall semester is worth all the work!!! There are still some unknowns, but I have faith that all will work out... it always does... [7amdolah]

Let the countdown to Japan begin!