I finally get my own class!!!!

Hello to all

welcome to another of this weeks blog.

This week i am mainly discussing my orchestra teaching in kirkcaldy. Of course i will speak about college and other relevent activities.

This week at my orchestra teaching i got to perform one to one tution with some students. It was an amazing experiance. I learned so much from the children. I began by warming up with them and afterwards i conducted a peice for them to play before beggining our usual rehersal. We worked through the exercises without any problem on there behalve but i have to admit i was a bit scared that the children may laugh at me as before i was just playing alone with them in band rehersals where as now i was there teacher for the evening. However i had to overcome my fear of confidence and just teach them what i had. I believe that it was a fantastic experiance.
Ontop of having to teach the children the original teacher was watching me like a hawk to see how i was doing. He always had a smile on his face so i just presumed that i was doing swimmingly well. When we went for a break i spoke to the teacher and asked how i did he said that i had a good job especialy under pressure. I was so happy and thrilled to hear him say this.
I learned a great deal that evening. It has helped me with my graded unit because i have learned to become more confident under pressure and being able to work under pressure are two skills needed to become an instrumental instructor. Its also helped me with my graded unit because i can use the materials used in the lesson to put as evidence in my port folio.
The best bit of it all was that i get to teach the children for 30 min every week from now on.

At work this week i was challenged by having to work with a new member of staff. At first she seamed a bit funny but as time grew and a few conversations later i was happily speaking to her. It taught me that first impressions werent always right and people deserve a chance. This relates to my graded unit because i need to learn to work with difficult students but give them a chance.

This week at college has been a quite short as i was off ill on wednesday but i pulled myself together for thursday.
The band is going strong, we are pretty much at performance standard just a few tweeks to adjust but the majority of it is there. Oh and we came up with a name........ Dylan peppers lonely hearts club band. What a shame on poor dylan. Also this week i finished my digital audio peice. I am becoming a bit more creative with myself which is always a good sign.

In this week piano lesson i had a short assessment which i passed very well. I need to be able to play piano to become a instrumental instuctor as i need to play accompaniments for students. which is a skill i am developing.

Finally i also finished a book on chopin this week is was very instresting to read about his life and the things that inspired is work. I belive this helps me with my graded unit because it gives me a fairer understanding of musical composers and styles of the times to have a diversity on my playing.

Thank you for reading

Zoe Johnston