Today was another crazy Wednesday. It was a perfect storm of the usual entropy of new student intakes, the one and only copy machine in the building breaking sometime between afternoon GED classes and evening ESL classes, and a preventable scheduling mix-up that left me short a teacher.
Honestly though, it was far from a disaster. My new students got enough attention, my teachers got one worksheet per class via the scanner, and my Advanced class (the center of so much bad luck with their lessons!) got a decent if not elegant lesson.
I’m happy that everyone got what they needed. Still, I’d like to limit the chaos in the future. Some things I can do:
- Take a few extra moments whenever I update the schedule to ensure accuracy, and ask volunteers to quick double-check it (it’s online)
- Look for a regular intake volunteer (I had someone briefly, and it was awesome)
- Consider having a back-up or on-call volunteer teacher on Wednesdays
- Re-think my intake materials location. Currently, there’s a lot of running back and forth.
There’ll still be nothing I can do if the copier suddenly breaks, but if I add more structure (and help!) to the controlling of the controllable, the things I can’t control will be easier to adapt to.
Onward!
Learning to Teach English 
Make up intake packets ahead of time – individual folders that have all the needed forms in them so you can grab a folder and go.
Make copies for classes a week in advance, so a copier breakdown is just a delay instead of a problem.
MJ – I’m glad we agree that intake folders are brilliant – I already do them. ;D
Copies for classes in advance would be much more of a challenge for several uninteresting reasons. Still, I think it’s worth looking into more closely – thank you!