No Comments! Be The First!
The first mile is the hardest
Posted By GDL Admin
Well, it has been a while since I last wrote (a result of no electricity and a trip to Ahmedabad). My main goal that I had wanted to achieve by now was the completion of the first unit of the four unit teacher training curriculum. This was an especially important goal as I am aiming to begin the training mid-September at the latest and want the entire curriculum to be completed by the start of the course.
Unfortunately, the goal was not met. I have all the skeletal work done and have been lucky that all the people to whom I have shown the curriculum have given me a lot of guidance and constructive advice. But I have also faced a few challenges. The most significant challenge is in designing activities / methods for the lesson plans. I have all the objectives for the teacher development as well as the English components, but I can’t seem to get beyond that. By this point, I had hoped that I would be working with someone else who would had more experience in developing activities or who already had resources from which to find activities. If you are this kind of person or know someone who is, please let me know! In the mean time, over the past few days, I have stepped up the efforts in looking for activities. It definitely helps that I have my objectives, so my searches are more focused.
Another challenge has been the continuous interruptions – whether kids want to practice typing on the computers and need to be bothered or other parallel projects need some attention. I just need to wake up earlier so I can work for a straight few hours before any one else can bother me ;-).
My next steps are to finish units 1 and 2 by this time next week. It’s ambitious, but I hope that from my experiences this past week, I have developed a better idea of how I need to approach this. I will continue to look for potential partnerships (up until this point, I have had a few breakthroughs, but so far they have not moved as fast as I need them to)
Anyway, as I mentioned, any thoughts or leads would be greatly appreciated!
Aug 11th, 2007