Week Journal 6 (14 March 2014)

Significant Situation 

As I've mentioned the previous week, this week I was proctoring the English reading A2 test for class 1IGH5 and the English writing A2 test for 1IGH3.
The 1IGH3's test taking was a bit rowdy at first, but I waited until they were all calm to hand out the test. After this, they got to work and were quiet.

 

However, the supervision of the 1IGH5 reading test went a bit amiss. The reason for this was because the students noticed after flipping through their test that they were missing a couple of pages.
I had separated the text and answer section beforehand, but I completely did not check if all the pages were accounted for. I trusted that the printing house had it all covered. Next time, I will double check everything before the students need to take their test.

How did I resolve this problem?
-I picked one of my most trusting students, gave him the correct pages, my teacher's card and asked him if he would be so kind as to print those pages.
-Also, I gave the whole class 15 extra minutes because they had to wait for the copies.
This was a hectic and unforeseen situation, but it turned out alright at the end because nobody even needed the extra time I had given them.

Reflection

I was at first quite panicky, because I had already given the students the test and I wondered if I should leave the classroom in order to make the copies myself. Deciding that was not very wise, because the students would surely cheat; I asked Daan, one of my best students, to make the copies.
The effect of my actions was that the class stayed calm and waited patiently, because I stayed calm and told them that they will have 15 more minutes because of my mistake of not checking the pages.
At first, my students were very confused as to why the question booklet skipped over 13 questions and why they were missing texts. They were also understandably annoyed at first, because they all wanted to finish the test on time.
I was told by my colleagues that I should always check the pages, because the printing house have made mistakes before and that it's my job to make sure I am prepared for the tests.
This situation is important to reflect on, because it shows how flexible I can be as a teacher when things go wrong during a test. I think I solved the problem pretty quickly, fairly (15 extra minutes) and with less commotion if I would have panicked during this situation.
I own up to my mistakes and told the students I was sorry for not having checked the pages beforehand. This shows that I believe in being fair with my students as a teacher.
In sum, I will always check the tests beforehand and I will keep my head on during upsetting situations like this one.

Internship Progress

Next week, I'm going to be taking oral tests at Deltion for the first time. I have never done this before, so it will be interesting to reflect on this at the end of the week.
 Until next week!