03/02/06 I went to class tonight with what I thought was a good strategy. I'd spent time preparing a lesson on basic numbers 1-20 for Alejandro, another lesson for Guadalupe on places, maps, miles and then another segment that pulled the two lessons together so they could work together, each at their own level. I thought it was a pretty good plan and I was really looking forward to seeing if I could pull it off. But then NEITHER of them showed! Not even Guadalupe. Scratch that.
Then Manuel from Honduras came rambling in. I hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks. I decided to work with him on the material I had prepared for Guadalupe but "team teacher" Rebecca started talking to him about puppies and his son and and and. So I just "pushed" my way into the lesson and all 3 of us worked on addresses. I had brought actual envelopes and we used those as examples to learn city, state, zip code, first name, last name, etc. And we were going to have Manuel write a letter to someone and address a blank envelope that I had also brought. It went pretty well; we all worked together.
However, there was also another twist tonight. Nancy, who teaches the most advanced of the 3 classes on site, couldn't come. Only a couple of her students showed up so they went into Betty's class. And after Rebecca and I finished our "address" lesson, she, Manuel and I went into Betty's class. So everyone last night ended up in Betty's class. Manuel really didn't want to go but we went too to support him. And it didn't seem practical to have 2 teachers working with 1 student and 1 teacher working with 9 students. I also thought we might get to do some assisting but Betty ran the show. She teaches an old fashioned grammar-based class with absolutely no authentic material. BUT the students really seem to like her class. They laugh together and appear to feel very comfortable speaking out loud in class, even making mistakes. I guess I feel a little jealous especially since "my" class has sort of petered out. The continuing ed director, who is over all the ESL classes, told me in my "interview" that the only request she had of me was that I make the class fun. She said that only one of her teachers had followed that request. Well, it certainly seemed to me that Betty's class was having fun last night even though Betty wasn't using any of the methodology I've been learning. I think I'd like to observe more of Betty's work so I can contrast and compare and reflect on what I'm seeing. But I guess for now I'd just like to have some students.
Then Manuel from Honduras came rambling in. I hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks. I decided to work with him on the material I had prepared for Guadalupe but "team teacher" Rebecca started talking to him about puppies and his son and and and. So I just "pushed" my way into the lesson and all 3 of us worked on addresses. I had brought actual envelopes and we used those as examples to learn city, state, zip code, first name, last name, etc. And we were going to have Manuel write a letter to someone and address a blank envelope that I had also brought. It went pretty well; we all worked together.
However, there was also another twist tonight. Nancy, who teaches the most advanced of the 3 classes on site, couldn't come. Only a couple of her students showed up so they went into Betty's class. And after Rebecca and I finished our "address" lesson, she, Manuel and I went into Betty's class. So everyone last night ended up in Betty's class. Manuel really didn't want to go but we went too to support him. And it didn't seem practical to have 2 teachers working with 1 student and 1 teacher working with 9 students. I also thought we might get to do some assisting but Betty ran the show. She teaches an old fashioned grammar-based class with absolutely no authentic material. BUT the students really seem to like her class. They laugh together and appear to feel very comfortable speaking out loud in class, even making mistakes. I guess I feel a little jealous especially since "my" class has sort of petered out. The continuing ed director, who is over all the ESL classes, told me in my "interview" that the only request she had of me was that I make the class fun. She said that only one of her teachers had followed that request. Well, it certainly seemed to me that Betty's class was having fun last night even though Betty wasn't using any of the methodology I've been learning. I think I'd like to observe more of Betty's work so I can contrast and compare and reflect on what I'm seeing. But I guess for now I'd just like to have some students.
posted by Connie | 7:36 AM
1 Comments:
You have experienced more 'ups & downs' than any of us this semester.
And, of course, you've handled it brilliantly.
Kudos.
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