Date of Class: 5/1/14
Day of Class: Thursday
Time of Class: 10-1130
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Homework Helper
How Many Learners: 12
Score: 3+6+6+6+5+3= 29
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): The group is getting bigger, and that’s awesome! I liked having all of my matrons in the room.. there are three queen bees, kinda, and they were all there today. One newbie, and one came back again.. Homework helper turned out to be more about exploring grades and their children, and where do they go.. I hope to bring in actual homeworks next week.

Date of Class: 4/24/14
Day of Class: Thursday
Time of Class: 10-1130
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Emergency Prep
How Many Learners: 10
Score: 3+4+5+6+4+6=28
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Almost the least prepared I’ve ever been – didn’t even take a lesson planning sheet out. Wung the whole thing, though I did make copies.. and then didn’t use them. An activity near the end with flashlight turned into asking about how you form present/past tense questions, which is very appropriate at this stage, and we did some dictations with do you/did you/Is it? etc.. Technique was a little off, found myself thinking and recalculating in the room a lot, and one mom was in and out of the class. Still, numbers back up around 10, with two newbies.. it was nice.

Date of Class: 4/17/14
Day of Class: Thursday
Time of Class: 10-1130
MC: patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Emergency Prep
How Many Learners: 7
Score: 4+6+4+4+5+5 = 28
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Having a tough time with this group.. Today, I didn’t feel like I really lost anyone, we had all returnees, but there are a few things making me feel.. anxious.. One learner helps move things along, but she answers all the questions. The smaller chairs I think also make people feel small and that’s not too great.. it’s true, it might be that the room itself might be dampening enthusiasm a little bit. Folks seem moderately interested, but there are people in the room not participating so it may be making people feel watched.. Today, I kinda did a little review of the program, which people seemed to want to be engaged with.. but I can just feel the holding back.. I might try the boardroom next week just to see if that makes a difference?

Date of Class: 4/15/14
Day of Class: Tuesday
Time of Class: 10-1130
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Maps & Addresses
How Many Learners: 8
Score: 4+4+3+3+4+6= 24
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Challenging class. New learners; late learners, crying babies, people leaving early, non returnees; a class that seemed to go really slow, and was just echoing in my ears with the repetition.. folks were succeeding at tasks, but it just seemed like there was no joy in the action… and not sure if it’s because I’m pushing them harder, or it’s just some weird full moon thing. One learner spent most of the time on the phone outside the class; two others left early, which totally changes the dynamic. We had another visitor from another site, and her level was higher, so it was a bit of a challenge. And another newbie who was probably making one of the others not feel so good. and a crying baby. I spoke with Laura afterwards, and she thought it was normal, and she said the early downpour would have kept a few folks away.. but I got a sense of uneasiness. Full moon weirdness?

Date of Class: 4/14/14
Day of Class: Monday
Time of Class: 12-2
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: At The Doctor
How Many Learners: 5
Score: 6+3+4+4+4+5=26
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): One of the lower scores I’ve given myself, though it wasn’t terrible.. but it just all felt.. off. I tried an activity that went to the board, and it was unbalanced then one of the learners left and made it even more awkward. Also, starting with a dictation orientated activity is still really sweet – as long as the group knows each other. There was a new learner who came in, and it was a little off balance, and she was really nervous, and because I didn’t do the standard warm up, she was off balance and nervous. She did warm up, though.. and trying to get one of the other learners to continually share and connect is challenging. Also, the worksheets we had were not super clear. And the activities tended towards higher skills. On the other hand, there were quesadillas, which was awesome.

Date of Class: 4/8/14
Day of Class: Tuesday
Time of Class: 10-1130
MC: patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Maps & Addresses
How Many Learners: 11
Score: 6+5+6+7+6+4 = 34
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): So great to be back at East! A few familiar faces, and several new ones. The key thing here is this group loves itself! There is a great bond between folks, and a couple of key people who clearly keep this community running. I can tell that I will be pushing them further in their skills, there was still some significant work to do with j/g/y and the new folks were significantly challenged. Also, the ordinal numbers were a big challenge – both writing and pronunciation, but they will get them!

Date of Class: 4/6/14
Day of Class: Sunday
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants:
Module: Housekeeping
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 7+7+7+7+7+5 = 40
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Today was the last class of this round, and I’m really excited about the progress I can totally see – I was able to take many of the activities and rachet them up a level. So, now we are asking them if someone else has a day off, and then reporting that to me. We are spelling each others’ names. I had them skywrite vocabulary in the room onto sticky notes, and then place them around the room – interesting and fun because they were all able to work together to write the words down, and then because they all put their notes up in their own order, they could work with others or try themselves. It was a very solid transition.

The last 30 minutes or so, I asked them if they called the supervisors, and they said they did, and this prompted us into a really good language experience activity. In this way, because we have the strong connection between the learners, they know the activities, and we have been moving them towards more production. But because the group is still multi-level we have to turn it into a correction/dictation activity. This seems incredibly powerful and engaging, because everyone else wants those same words too. Even better to return to them next time. Most of all, we meet our goals for some of the learners, because they started to call and make reports. Super cool.

Date of Class: 3/23/14
Day of Class: Sunday
MC: Patrik
DJ:
Assistants: Heather, Andrea
Module: Talking with the Boss
How Many Learners: 14
Score: 3+3+6+7+7+5= 31
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): A large, lovely group. keeping everyone together and on track takes the most time, because they are so lively and fun and boisterous. A few new people; delicious sweet flat bread; moderately noisy children. I feel like I really want to get the group a little more stable so we can actually push further for the more skilled/proficient learners.