Friday, March 25, 2016

Choirs on the Horizon?

Hi team! So it's been a while... I guess I've just gotten lazy with the updates. I have settled into a routine, which renders me incapable of anything but blobbing out in my spare time. Okay, so that's not entirely true, I do get up to other things, but honestly I haven't felt like my day to day life has been worth blogging about recently. However, in the last few days I was swapped with teaching assistant from a year 1 class, so that changed things up a bit. It was kind of amazing to see the effect that just one more year of school has on a kid - compared to Foundation, these students were following both written and oral instruction a lot more smoothly. I could have slightly more sophisticated conversations with them, and found them to be more independent - sometimes I was at a loss of what to do, because they needed little guidance. This meant that I was primarily photocopying, guillotining, and gluing worksheets or just providing positive feedback and answering the odd question. To be fair though, the Foundation class I have spent most of this year with have had a lot of disruptions to their routine due to staff coming and going. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my little Foundation kiddies, and I will miss them: I have just found out that I'm moving to a different Foundation class instead. I have also been told (after 2 months of silence on this topic) that I will in fact be starting the choir/s up too...which I am now kind of nervous about for a few reasons:

  1. I had pretty much given up on the idea that it was happening because of how late in the academic year it is, and had stopped planning for it.
  2. It sounds like I will be the sole person in charge, and the school haven't had choirs before so there is no actual framework or predecessor to ask about the logistics of it all.
  3. I'm kind of intimidated by the older students, purely because I am aware that I may not look old enough for them to have the same respect for me as they would for the average staff member
  4. It's a private international school that costs a lot of dolla dolla so all the parents I'm sure would have high expectations of a choral programme...did I mention I don't know what I'm doing?
  5. Who da fuqq is going to be the accompanist? It sure as hell can't be me...
That being said I am excited about it all, I just hope I am supported, rather than thrown into the deep end and expected to figure it out on my own. If I'm going to do this, I want to do it well. I want to prove that I can bring something to this school, despite being so young. Being a member of a choir is VASTLY different to directing/leading/conducting a choir. On top of that, choosing repertoire that is simple enough for 5/6 year olds, yet appealing to much older students too will be challenging.

Funny story, earlier this month we were having a bit of a "rainy" period. I should clarify that this "rain"from the students' perspective was more like light spitting to a New Zealander. My kids were getting so excited and hyped up about the weather, saying they couldn't go outside because of the rain etc. One little girl even worryingly called it a storm, which was hilarious. Of course I consoled her and told her that no, this was not a storm. That weather is long gone though, and now it's getting to the point where it's too hot and sticky to sleep under the covers at night, and I don't think I'll be able to get away with not using the air conditioning at bedtime much longer. But as people keep reminding me, I ain't seen nothing yet.

Ugh, why is my go to topic a new commentary on the current weather here. I'm such an old hag.

Also, some of these worksheets are baffling. Some very important vocab for kids here.


1 comment :

  1. Don't worry Abby, you will be a fine choir director :) Self learning goes a long way ;)

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