The first day
Today was the first day of the Summer Course. There are three classes at different levels, but they were all combined in one room for the enrollments and examination paperwork. My students are at a level where the basic form-filling was no problem for them. The teacher of the entry-level class had to do a lot more handholding.

After enrollment I was able to set my students to work on a 'get to know your partner' exercise as an ice-breaker, which took us up to the end of the first session. I then started work from one of the set books for the second session. The students all seem keen and are very friendly, and I was pleased with the way today's lesson went.

The college allocated lessons slots at the Summer Course to all of the existing teachers who wanted them, which meant that the new teachers are mainly covering for teachers who are on holiday.

I am one of three new teachers, and have been given a block of work from Monday to Thursday this week and Monday, Tuesday and Friday next week. This is less work than I had initially hoped for, but the fact that it is a solid block of work makes it closer to a full-time teaching experience than if I had been given a single morning for six weeks. Now that I will have more free time in the summer I am investigating the possibility of going to Prague for August rather than waiting until September.

Prior to this I have never had to plan for more than one lesson at a time. For this week I have had to plan a block of 8 lessons. I'm sure that I will become more efficient in my lesson planning but over the last week I have been struggling to keep my head above water. I think I have done enough to ensure that everything is in place for this week's lessons, but I had to revise tomorrow's lesson plan to take account of the pace my students were working at today. I may have to revisit Wednesday and Thursday's plans, too.