My first week of actually teaching

This has been the first week in which I have been actively teaching. Unfortunately it has been a passive experience for my kids. We have been working on grammar, which is not a fun subject, all week long. I have enjoyed being in front of the class, but I wish I had been able to work on something other than grammar. I know my kids are burned out about it, and this is something that we are going to focus on for the rest of the month. I think this is a passive experience because I stand in front of the class going over what the textbook says and we review the handout. They have time to work on the handout and we go over the answers together. For some of my kids, they seem to be working with the experience. Some of the kids will answer questions and will explain why they got that answer. On a couple of occassions they have proved me wrong and explained to me why my answer is wrong. I don't have a teacher's edition so I have to do the work myself. I have to say I have enjoyed being wrong, especially when a student explains to me why he thinks he is right and I see that he is. This lets me know that I must be doing a good job explaining because someone is paying attention.

Today I asked my students how many of them use IM. Almost all of them do and they encouraged me to do the same. They said they think that some things might be easier understood if they are taught on computers. I think this is true because in my class my kids have access to computers at home. They all text message because they all have cell phones. They think that it would be cool if I had a website that had links to things that I like and things that I think would help them to understand things in class.