TEFL summer school, teaching pre teens and teenagers. The teacher was sent to another class for a couple of weeks for some reason, so I was told the day before that I'd be taking them instead for the next day until further notice. I wasn't able to get a handover or anything, and there's no scheme of work.
There are 16 pupils aged between 7 and 15, and with very different levels of English so I am teaching 2 different lessons within the lesson really.
I have a pupil who's basically fluent so she also needs different work.
Today, my second day with them, one of the parents asked me if the original teacher Liz would be returning tomorrow. I said she'd be away for nearly a fortnight and the parent sighed and rolled her eyes, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence even though I get they want continuity. Some other parents seem a bit cold with me, it's hard as I didn't decide to change the teachers around, even though I get it.
I do games with flashcards, picture cues, grammar work, pair speaking, matching words up, Kahoot etc.
The room is very small and we've had to squeeze in extra desks so they can't even move around, nor are they allowed to leave at breaktime.
The very first day there were behavioural issues so we swapped places around which has helped to an extent. A boy told me he had a headache because it was noisy, so I spoke to some parents of the noisier children and also told them they need to be quieter, as well as banning phones.
The boy is about 15, his Mum came to collect him and they were speaking Arabic so I couldn't understand, but I could understand that the boy was complaining to the mother and the mother was saying 'my poor boy' sort of thing. Then she said in English 'it's not organized', but she said it to her son, not to me.
I think today went a bit better than yesterday luckily, I don't know if this is typical of a TEFL classroom as i haven't really taught younger TEFL learners so much.
Parents are paying almost £400 per week per child apparently, some of them have got 4 kids enrolled. I know a lot of these parents are wealthy but I feel bad for them paying that much for what they're receiving, I almost feel ashamed.