Workshop 2
Today in the French Workshop we were looking at numbers. Immediately I was significantly more relaxed than last week, I believe it was because I am more confident with numbers than with greetings.
The most memorable part of the workshop was the ‘Kings and Queens’ game, we sat in a circle and all had a number associated with the chair we were sitting on, and had to say a number and if someone made a mistake then they had to go to the end of the circle. I found this to be quite stressful, in that I was really very nervous about being in the hot-seat and really did not like everyone looking at me when I spoke. Though I had to think about how I would feel if I was a primary school child. On one hand, if I was a nervous type of person I would be thinking that I wanted to not lose and may feel quite stressed about being the only one to get things wrong. If I was more of a confident person, I would be concerned with winning, possibly beating my friends.
I think that the activity was good, but I think that I would have to be aware of the different personalities in the class, I may split the class into smaller groups so that they will be more confident that they are not speaking in front of the whole class. Another option would be to play the game in English for a few week so that they could become really confident in the game so that it would not be too stressful in French.
I left feeling less panicked and stressed than last week, but I am not feeling very confident and would like to have done a lot better. Next week I am going to try to participate a little more and boost my confidence levels.
Out of 5, I would give my anxiety levels a 3.
I felt exactly the same as you did with the Kings and Queens – I was very nervous and I like your idea of splitting the class into smaller groups however, I wonder how you would do this for numbers bigger than the small groups. You would perhaps do 1-10 in one group 11-20 in the next 21-30 etc. etc. and allow them to carousel round the groups?
I am also interest to find out how you feel now all of the workshops are over. Are you more confident now in your own ability in French, is your anxiety levels lowered and what about you confidence for your ability to teach a French lesson?