This is the reunion of TPAN. This time we meet other English teachers in Taipei County as trainees and have Caroline, Ayomi and Rushmi to be our trainers, Today is the third day of the program and, strangely, I get several teachers asking me how old I am or what year I was born in. I asked them why they ask me the question since I haven’t talked to some of them yet. They said that I look very young. I’m happy about it and I feel safer to be around the senior and the more experienced.

  I have my first English class in cram school today and I must say that junior high school students are much more serious than I thought. They seldom laugh, smile less and response little. I don’t know if they feel nervous or uncomfortable on our first meeting or they just behave this way. After class, the students and other teachers come and talk to me. There’s an ABC who can barely speak in Chinese telling the other teacher that my English is very good because I have a very good pronunciation. Feeling a bit happy about that, I still wonder how to make the class more active.

Well, technically it’s only the last week that the article is supposed to talk about but I’m going to record the last week and my thoughts about the whole cycle in TPAN as well.

We have a very interesting and exciting activity, which requires us to give a one-minute speech on stage right after picking a topic. Mine is PILOT. My speech is lousy, I think, but my fellow classmates still give me a big hand.

      I got a call from Chief of Information Technology Section today. He asked about my will to be an informational technology teacher. I’m a little honored to be asked about it, however; I just rekindle my interests in learning and teaching English from TPAN Program. I’m not going to spoil the opportunity to renew my enthusiasm of both learning and teaching English. So I turn him down and I hope I won’t be regretful in the future. Somehow I think being an informational technology teacher is also a very challenging and interesting job to a mouse potato like me. Right now I’m open to every possibility and challenge. Let’s pray my passion in teaching English, which is easy to lose during the semester ,can last the whole summer vacation.

I’m a little pissed off by one of my group members. While we discuss the Talent Show, she keeps telling us what to do and not to do. Giving advices is helpful, but all she thinks about is cutting the games and activities and forcing us to hold her famous motto “I just want a lowpass.” Yesterday while we discussed the invention, she closed her eyes resting and did nothing contributed to the group. Now she wants us to do this and do that in an easy ,should we say lazy and convenient, way? I don’t think so. Just spending three weeks within the group, I’ve already found several characteristics teachers tend to have, such as being dominating, uncooperative, indifferent and boring. Why can't she , like what we teachers always preach to the students, just do her best and enjoy all the fun? Humph! They’re also a bunch of grumblers!

This weak has been a torture for TPAN participants because we’re told to shut the AC up during the graduation ceremony rehearsal and the real ceremony. Though we don’t practice our pronunciation as much as we did the last two weeks, we do a lot of presenting and group performing. Take today for example. We’re supposed to come up with a new invention, introduce it and market it. We’re having fun discussing the Lion King product, UV Rays Collector Chip, and aren’t paying attention to the time limit. So our team leader and I have to get ourselves on stage and just improvise. I’m crying for help within my heart while the other group members are just standing stiffly behind us. Alas!

I’ve been classified into a group with the best pronunciation and intonation. I’m happy about the feedback which Carolyn gave to me. She said she was surprised by my speaking so well that she requested me to speak more. I got 23 scores out of 30 and full marks in the passage reading in the second oral assessment. Today, I got another feedback of 3^rd oral assessment given by Margret. She said that my EX—pronunciation is not acute enough, having too much nasal sounds and I have to speak with my mouth bigger and wider. She scores me 26.5 out of 30. There’re still two more weeks to go and I’m afraid that I haven’t leave much room for myself to make progresses for.

I got a little sloppy on keeping my blogs.(and my shape as well :p )

Let’s wrap it up.

   I’ve got a little bored with the course, though it’s not like that Phonetics is easy. In the morning, we have plenty of practice on vowels and consonants, trying to pronounce words listed in “the Bible” correctly and hopefully with an accent like native speakers. We do practice the whole morning; however, I doubt it that it can do any good just repeating them over and over again.

      In the afternoon, we work on the listening part and have two comprehension tests. Yet the instructor didn’t give us any instruction or any help, except for giving the answers. I think the activities would be barely helpful to listening abilities, maybe to the opportunities to use English.

On the first day, we have a lot of assessments, including vocabulary, reading comprehension, pronunciation, giving a two-minute speech and writing a one-hundred-word story. All of the assessments are not difficult to me, though I may not do well in them. However, I come across a major problem expressing myself to my team-mate under one-for-one situation. During the break, I felt like the Yankees who were just beaten earlier. I found that my biggest weakness is speaking or making a speech in English.

The most exciting thing in this day is the meeting with the beloved third-grade teacher, Huang Bau Ying.

四年四班，我真的很不喜歡教你們這些魔鬼蛇神！

星期三、四的課，只要到星期天晚上就開始煩惱。

星期四上完你們的課，我的心情就頓時開朗。

今天這些人一樣打鬧的進教室，

看到我把頭髮放下來，跑到我面前說：老師，你怎麼每個星期換一個造型？

按，還不是因為要準備備戰，當然要振奮自己的精神啊。

甩一甩頭髮，後，今天頭髮很順很香，打評語進度順利，不用上四年四班就是高興啦！

僅以此紀念本人執教以來，遇到最難纏的班級及最離譜的學生。

上一班的學生走，下一班的學生來，

下課跟學生聊天、解答他們的問題、處理訂正作業、補救教學，

常常連坐下的時間都沒有，又要繼續上課了。

不管當天有沒有他們的科任課，學生下課還是常常跑來英文教室，

但中午索性把門給鎖了，不想被打擾。

因為這是唯一可以自己安靜休息的時候，

不過小朋友竟然就在窗口哀求，

連微乎其微、稍作喘氣的空間都被擠壓了。

於是對於中午看到學生便產生了莫名的恐懼感。

向某人抱怨，

他說：「想想十年後還會有這麼多學生跑來嗎？

        其他老師有這麼多學生跑來嗎？」

感覺上好像是要我因很多學生跑來而高興或驕傲，

但如果已經打擾到我，如何能讓我高興呢？

造成我的困擾，我寧願不要。

為了學生想來就讓渡自己寶貴的休息時間，犧牲未免太大。

不想迎合學生所有的需求，

也許受學生歡迎值得高興，但也想保有自己的步調啊。

在忙碌快速的生活中，

我的一些些無奈和無力，

希望看網誌的你能懂。

今天最後一節是體育課，上課鐘響，我已經在講桌準備叫學生排隊，

正修匆忙跑進來，跌倒後撞到椅子，之後就痛得倒地，

我趕緊叫兩個高壯的學生扶正修去健康中心，

然後把全班叫去走廊排隊上體育課，打算趕快要下去健康中心找正修。

沒想到正修實在太痛無法行走，就倒在隔壁班的走廊，

看到這個情景，心裡暗喊不妙，叫幾個學生陪著正修後，

我就到健康中心搬救兵，看有沒有擔架可以把正修抬下來送醫，

接著就連絡家長，告知他們現在的情況，後來決定直接打119送醫。

很快的，正修的爸爸就來了，我和護士也一直在教室陪著正修，

一方面安撫他，一方面了解他的情況，維持他的意識清醒，

外傷是擦傷，但就怕有內出血了，

馬上四點我就跟著正修上救護車到署立台北醫院，

覺得急診室的處理實在不是很快，

四點半準備打顯影劑，要斷層掃描，

家長很客氣的要我和生叫組長先回去，說太麻煩我們，

五點半斷層的報告還沒讀，（太久了吧）

然後八點的時候，我再打電話過去問爸爸，

他說右上的腎臟壞死，目前有內出血和血尿的情形，

未來要住院觀察，如果壞死的腎臟有被身體自行吸收，就還好。

如果沒有，或者有併合其他出血，就要開刀了。

家長的態度一直是很不好意思麻煩老師、耽誤老師，

然後爸爸說，他知道他的小孩喜歡用跑的，用講的也講不聽。

第一次碰到這麼嚴重的受傷情形，家長還能諒解，

我的壓力比較小，還是很擔心。

在救護車上差點就要掉下淚來，

也覺得有些生氣，老師說了多少次不要在教室奔跑，

唉，複雜的心情。

正修是個很熱心率直的小孩，他的心情都表現在外，

每天吃午餐被叫到的時候，就會很高興的向前衝，

被膳食股長和同學糾正了很多次，

發生奔跑進教室的情形不意外，

但是會跌倒撞到內臟壞死就是意外中的意外了，

希望正修能夠順利渡過這次的意外，

也希望學生和我都要記取正修的教訓，避免類似的意外發生，

也才能避免這樣的遺憾發生。

為正修祈禱。

班上令人頭痛的一個小朋友，上禮拜和別班小朋友打架，這禮拜和五年級小朋友打架。