Sorry I haven't been posting much. I'm still not in my own apartment and haven't been able to hook my computer up to the internet.

I'm teaching reading to middle school students, many of whom have lived in the States before. I observed classes last week and taught my first three classes yesterday. I felt as prepared as I could be and everything went well. The advanced kids are very competent and we can have good discussions in class. In terms of the class structure, the kids take a quiz for the first 15 minutes while I correct their homework. Then we correct the quiz and some of the homework before moving on to the first set of readings. We have a five minute break after the first hour and then return to do a second set of readings. They finish up with a 20 minutes essay, which they later have to revise for homework. While they write the essay, I finish grading and record the grades. It's pretty straight forward. I teach 4:30-6:30, 7-9 and 9-11 and we order take out for the half hour break.

When students enroll in our school, they sign up for a reading class and a listening class, for a total of 4 hours per week. They can also sign up for a writing class, an additional 2 hours, if they are advanced enough. In addition to our institute, many of the students attend other academies for English and or other subjects. One of the readings last week was about how important it is for kids to get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep per night. The students reported that they get more like 6 hours per night. They attend classes on Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes even on holidays. They are all focused on getting into elite high schools and are under a lot of pressure from their parents. When do these kids have fun and relax? I have no clue.