Another first week of school has come and gone - my 28th as a full-time teacher. This year felt different for a few reasons. The most striking difference was how much quieter it felt. My teaching assignment this year is half library, half ESL support. Last year, I was almost all prep, so I saw entire classes from the get-go. Part of the role of the ESL teacher is to conduct individual assessments with students to determine what STEP (Steps to English Proficiency) level they are at to help shape programming decisions. In my school board, the assessments consist of an oral interview, then first language reading/writing sample, then a picture response, followed by either a early literacy task or reading/writing assessment, and after that an initial mathematics assessment, ending with an initial assessment summary and next steps. All of these must be done one-on-one. This translates to a lot of quiet moments, as many of the students I will be servicing appear to be at A1 or Step 1 for Listening and Speaking.
The library wasn't quite ready for recess visitors yet because I wasn't there in either July or August to help tidy it up. It became a bit of a dumping ground over the summer - how did I end up with 5 HEPA filters? - and so I scratched out some time when I wasn't evaluating students to try and clean things up. I made some changes to the layout to accommodate the ESL students. I wanted to make sure that these students have a space they can call their own, apart from the library space. My amazing caretaker renovated an old white board easel for me to use and it looks a lot more open. I didn't take any before or after photos because it's a work in progress.
I took the opportunity to wear some of my newly bought Fluevog shoes this week at school. I think I'm soon to be at my limit. I now have 19 pairs of Fluevogs and barely enough space to store them. I nearly forgot how to take shoe selfies. The library is a great place to pose for these pictures, since you have the book shelves as a colorful background.
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| Day 1, with Malalas |
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| Day 2 with Pilots |
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| Day 3 with Astas |
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| Day 4 with Baroque Cortanas |
I'm sure things will get noisier as the weeks go by. Wish me luck as I learn this new role!
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