05/16/06 Attending: Artemio, Manuel, Laura, Esmeralda and newbies novices Eulalio and Baudelino Lopez (Misael's brothers). Tonight's lesson recycled names of places in the community and introduced prepositions. We were chugging along when in the middle of the lesson Misael brought in his brothers who were very beginners. I tried to fold them into what we were doing but that required them to quickly learn vocab for places in community, complete with pronunciation, and prepositions too. They hung in there, but it was over their head. For the activities, the class naturally divided into pairs with Laura helping Baudelino, Artemio helping Eulalio, and Manuel and Esmeralda (who are basically on the same level) working together. Laura is loud and disruptive. She explains everything in Spanish and several times I had to call the class to "order" so everyone could hear what I was saying. I'm glad that Laura was there to work one-on-one with Baudelino, but I'm thinking it might be better to bump her up to Betty's class. I think she does know enough English to be in that class. Artemio probably does too, but I hate to lose him. He is my current mainstay and sometimes he's the only student who shows up. Plus he can translate what I can't get across. He's reluctant to change classes but I do think he's ready. I've had several newbie very beginners come for one or two times then disappear. Because Misael is very faithful in his attendance, I think he will see that Eulalio and Baudelino come often. That would mean going back to square one. And if I didn't have Artemio and Laura, I could do that. I had a good lesson planned for tonight but only got thru about half of it due to the newbies. I had some good activities for the end that I never got to.