03/21/06 I had students again tonight -- yea!!!! Manuel and 3 newbies returned plus one more newbie showed up. Tonight I had designed a lesson plan that would incorporate any new person into the lesson for the first 45 minutes or so and then had small group work for the others to do while I registered and tested the newcomer. This is how I am going to organize the time in these classes from now on. It will take a little more thought and work but I just don't want to hit a newcomer with paperwork and test the minute they come in the door. I came to class early tonight to get the testing and registration forms and materials organized so I could just whip them out. This worked. This was the first test I had administered, it was way too hard for the guy, but it was the version that I was told to start with. And I really couldn't tell from those first 45 minutes whether or not this was the right level test. I think after this experience I'll be able to make a better decision about which test version to use.

Tonight we worked on numbers 1-12. I had a series of activities beginning with flash cards I'd made with numbers and words, then just numbers, then dots with no numbers or words. I also had dice and playing cards to use for practicing numbers. Maybe next class I'll teach them to play Go Fish. I actually used up all my activities which surprised me. We had about 10 minutes left at the end of class and I asked them what they wanted to do. Talk, they said! So we did.

The only thing I wasn't 100% happy with tonight was the way the groups worked. I tried to get them to work in pairs on each activity but they kept working as a whole group. I had to let it be OK but I did think that the newest guy didn't get a chance to practice that much because the ones who knew the answers spoke quickest and loudest. But it did give me a chance to work one-on-one with Isaac (see below) who just breezed thru each activity anyway. He kept saying -- listo, listo (ready, ready).

Isaac is a new fellow from Columbia who came for the 2nd time tonight. I could tell during this lesson that he probably belongs in Betty's class but he doesn't want to go. The work I'm giving the others is really too easy for him, so I used the time while they were working to answer his specific questions. There's so much he wants to know and he's frustrated because he feels like it's taking so much time. I kept telling him -- in time, in time.