Date of Class: December 3, 2013
Day of Class: Tuesday
PI: Lisa
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Happy Holidays
How Many Learners: 2
Score: 19
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):

Only had 2 learners today but they were really talkative and engaging which filled up the space pretty well with the absence of the others. We did the Alphabet Listen and Point, then I suggested, for a change and because there was only 3 of us there, that they write down the alphabet from memorization because, for me at least, they can identify the letter so I was just wondering if they can write the alphabet out without help. Both of them did pretty well, although there was an instance where one of them completely left out a sequence of 7 letters when writing out the alphabet.

Then we went into Christmas stuff. I had them make a Christmas wish list, which consisted mostly of houses, cars, and good health. Then we went and did a document search with Jingle Bells, then we went through the song line by line, first just reading then into a more sing-songey pace. Then we sang the song. At the end of class I had the two learners sing the song with their kids, of which I wished I would’ve recorded because it was so cute.

The one thing that was interesting, and something that I hadn’t really thought of, was when one of the learners brought it up the fact that before when they were heard the song “Jingle Bells” it didn’t mean anything to them, at least they didn’t understand what the song was about; But then when we were going through the song line by line in class, they understood what the song was saying. I have never really thought about how strange it must be for someone who isn’t from this culture and not understanding these “cultural-norms”, in this case the Jingle Bells song and singing Christmas carols in general, that for us are just part of everyday life.

Date of Class: 11/12/13
Day of Class: Tuesday
PI: Jacob
SI: N/A
Assistants: N/A
Module: Soccer
How Many Learners: 3
Score: 28
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):

Lackluster night. It ended solid, as I did some TPR with various sports related actions, but with 3 women, I wasn’t really sure how to get a conversation going.

We talked about the kids of the learners, who all played soccer, and we looked at a playoff sheet and talked about who won and lost a game. We talked about riding bikes, running, and how it’s good for your health, but until the very end, the energy wasn’t really there. Felt pretty “meh” about it.

Date of Class: October 29, 2013
Day of Class: Tuesday
PI: Lisa
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Soccer
How Many Learners: 4
Score:19
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
One more learner to add to this group! Yay! Well, first of all, I had no idea what to do about soccer because I don’t play, at least I don’t play enough to know much about it. But luckily one of the learners was very good with the topic and really helped me build things along. One thing that I did forget to do was at least try to dictate things because I didn’t notice that maybe some of the learners might want some dictation until one of them started writing down what I was saying such as “Brazil holds 5 World Cup champions” and “Spain in the current World Cup champion”. When I did notice it, it was a “DUH!” moment and started doing it but I should’ve thought about it beforehand. So thank you, Rosa!

Date of Class: December 9 2013
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Kathy Boyd
SI: None
Assistants: None
Module: Shopping
How Many Learners: 1
What happened: Only one learner came to my last class last night. She brought some food to share because I mentioned the week before that we would have a party to close out the last day before the holiday. I totally forgot all about bringing something and was very apologetic yet she did not seem to mind. We spent the first fifteen minutes chatting about our preparations for the holidays and then I pulled up some Christmas images (Christmas tree, presents, santa claus, snowman, ornaments, etc) on my laptop and dictated the vocabulary words to A. After the dictation activity, I pulled up the u tube video of Jingle Bells that we watched last week. A and I sang along with the video one time and then worked on pronunciation practice by having A read the lyrics out loud. (These were dictated last week to the learners). After the choral response, I played the song a few more times and we both sang along. For the last 15 minutes of class, I dictated part of the 12 days of Christmas (we only got to day 5). Prior to the dictation activity I played the song a few times on u tube for A to listen to. After dictation, she read the lyrics aloud and then next thing I knew we were out of time. As you can see from my description of this lesson, I obviously did not focus on anything remotely close to shopping…I guess my brain was on holiday mode. But at least we had fun and A enjoyed singling some holiday carols with me.

Date of Class:11/18/2013
Day of Class:Monday
PI:Kathy Boyd
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Tri-met
How Many Learners: 2
Score:
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
Tonight I was a half an hour late due to the max being broken down and having to take a shuttle to get to my car at gateway. I finally arrived to class and found two students waiting for. I was able to use my experience in my lesson. After the alphabet listen and point, I pulled out the trimet system map and did a short document search and find activity. Then had them trace my route starting at PSU, transferring to second max, transferring to shuttle bus, and ending at gateway transit center. Then I turned it into a dialogue that I dictated. “How do i get to gateway transit center from psu” “You take the greenline all the way there” “But wait, the max is broke down” (this made them laugh) “Oh that’s right (laughs again) you need to take the green line to lloyd center and then take a bus to the gateway transit center” . The rest of the time was devoted to practicing the dialogue and working on pronunciation. Overall it was a good less and was glad that my transportation issues fit in nicely with the module.

Date of Class: October 28th
Day of Class: Monday
PI:Kathy Boyd
SI:
Assistants:
Module:Tri-Met
How Many Learners:4
Score:
What happened

Tonight was a complete disaster. First, Yell and Spell did not go as planned. I was unsuccessful in getting the learners to repeat each letter after the speaker. They did it when I spelled my name but not when their classmates did. I even stopped multiple times and had learners start over with their name spelling and still no luck. Second, the learners used many Spanish to communicate. I am okay with them using their native tongue but there came a point where I had to tell them to use English, especially when they were giving me directions from one place to another. Third introducing the tri-met maps was also unsuccessful. None of my students ride the bus so they were all completely confused with reading the map and schedules. I am not sure if I should continue on with tri-met if is not relevant to the learners. I had two students request help with getting around town by car, and one explained her frustration with going to visit friends because she does not know her way around town. The one highlight of the evening was when one student asked how to get to the Clackamas Town Center. I pulled out the system map and showed them one way by max and another learner discovered that you could take the #4 on division or the #9 on powell and then transfer to green line max. This then turned into my dictation activity..unfortunately we ran out of time to finish the dialogue but i hope to finish it next week and have them practice it.

Date of Class: October 21st
Day of Class:Monday
PI:Kathy Boyd
SI:
Assistants:
Module:In the Neighborhood
How Many Learners:5
Score:
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):

I had three learners to begin with: one high, one intermediate and one very low. My one low level student is illiterate in English and got lost during the dictation activity. It was way too hard for her and the dialogue was too long. The challenge here for me was trying to keep my other tow learners from getting bored as I attended to Gui. Luckily, her grand daughter was there and was able to give her some one on one help. I think next week I may just have her practice writing letters and bring in some simple picture flashcards for reading and pronunciation practice. Anyone have any suggestions?

Two more learners came to class with only 20 minutes remaining and even though they missed a lot were able to engage and interact in a role-play activity and get a little pronounciation practice in.

Name: Lisa C
Class#: 19
Date:Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Location: Rockwood Library
Module: What Do You Do?
PI:Crystal
How Many Learners: 7
What did I learn: Today was another Silent Class that went well and was pretty much fun. It was fun watching the students guess the different verbs and try to figure out what Crystal was wanting them to do. They caught on with the alphabet in sign language pretty quick, like last time; some people who came in late who weren’t there last week were a little confused when Crystal was signing the letters but they caught on. Because I had to be Crystal’s voice for the time, I was a little nervous and it was difficult for me to know when to step in and give the answer or just wait for the students to work it out themselves, but Crystal gave me some cues on what to do, which helped calm my nerves. Silent Classes are interesting and fun and is definitely something all assistants should help in, at least once.