A plea for help

So, I've been reading a lot of mildly melancholy, a blog by a former teaching fellow. Well kind of former, I get the feeling that some people think when you're a teaching fellow you're a fellow forever. I also get the feeling that you kind of stop being a teaching fellow after your first summer since the "organization" or what have you more or less drop you like a hot potato, what a dorky metaphor.

Anyway! The blog has really motivated me to do more updating, in addition to the fact that I seem to get hits when I update my post, and that thrills me. I just finished reading about her first year of teaching, and I must say I am terrified. She seemed to have a pretty rough time of it, especially the first few months. Although, she didn't start the year off at her school which I think worked against her a lot and is something I wont have to deal with. But it scares me more that her lessons seem to be so interesting or, at the very least, creative. I just don't feel creative about lesson planning. I'm nervous.

A foreign language is such a complicated learning process and I can't think of a good way to teach the stuff that I want to teach. I'm trying to follow this "workshop model" thing, and the individual and group practice things are pretty ok. Even assessment is manageable, at least I think. And I plan on doing an "hagan ahora" of review for my opening. But Mini-lesson? What the hell do I do there? How can you engage students in things like verb conjugations? I, obviously, think it's super awesome. I actually thought for a long time before applying to the fellowship that if I could only find a job wherein I would simply do Spanish grammar worksheets all day, that my life would be endlessly complete. But I'm sure 13 year olds don't think like me. Help!