Date of Class: 11/11/13
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants: Kevin
Module: At The Bank (Veteran’s Day)
How Many Learners: 3
Score: 3+3+5+5+4+6=26
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): This was a pretty drab day in terms of technique. I was running late (max problems) and then I wanted to explore war, but really didn’t have the right materials for it. I put Kevin in the hot seat for the beginning, which is not ideal, but he held his own… and I got the sense that folks were not as engaged as they often are.. Possibly to do with some new faces in the classroom. I know I pushed one learner a little further than she was comfortable with today. My technique was very dictation heavy, which is normally really good, but today, felt a little flat.

Date of Class: Nov. 5
Day of Class: Tuesday
PI: ML
SI: Brooke
Assistants:
Module: Soccer
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 11
What happened:
Well first off, it was nice to have Brooke as an SI- it alleviated the stress of dealing with the attendance and loyalty cards while trying to also start class, to say the very least. We began with just a discussion about what sports we play. I really am liking the conversation at the beginning of class- it is a great warm-up/lead-in to whatever the class will be about, and a great way to get to know each other and loosen the class up.

Due to my lack of writing out a specific dictation, Brooke and I kind of stumbled through this part. In trying to talk about sports, we basically came up against the “I do yoga” vs. “I play basketball” vs. “I box” dilemma. We kind of stumbled through it, confusing some students and trying to clear it up as we could. We discussed afterward using this as a focal point at the next class- separating sports into these three camps and dictating/saying them for practice and, hopefully, more clarity. Again, had I written them out specifically (or practiced aloud), I might have realized this would be complicated before actually being in class.

Date of Class: 11/4/13
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants:
Module: At The Bank
How Many Learners: 4
Score: 3+3+7+7+5+4= 29
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Even though I wasn’t prepared (seems to be how it goes down these days), and really, all I did was dictation – this was a wonderful class. We didn’t do anything related to the bank – we started off with working with one learner wanting to express something – a new notebook. Then practicing replacement of pronouns “She bought me a new notebook”. The lowest skilled learner stayed in the game, though she did a lot of copying. The day went by fast, as new topics came up, we slowed it down, and turned it into a dictation. We talked about groceries and shopping and Alabama. It was a perfect example, really, of what a tutoring/small group situation should look like. Lots of connection and interest.

Date of Class: 10/29/13
Day of Class: Tues
PI: ML
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Soccer
How Many Learners: 10
Score: 11
What happened:
At the beginning of class, when teaching alone, I’m still stumbling through the balancing act of starting the lessons, welcoming late arrivals, and figuring loyalty cards. I tried to organize more attendance things before they arrived and that kind of helped. Kind of. Because of this general cumbersome-ness, my idea to incorporate last names into the yell and spell was also a bit clumsy. After a couple confusing turns, I changed my tack (and wrote the last names), and it seemed to work better. From this, I again made an effort to have more conversation and speaking practice in class. So, I began by using Patrik’s suggestion of talking about Halloween (parties, what costumes their kids will be wearing, candy, etc) and from there we discussed favorite sports, who played soccer, etc. I used the answers from these questions to create the dictation exercise (i.e. Does Juan play soccer? What’s Cera’s favorite sport?). It worked great- the conversation was interesting and we all learned a lot about each other, and I think it made the dictation more relevant (and therefore engaging) because not only were they writing what we had just spoken, but it was about them and their fellow students.

Date of Class: 10/28/13
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants:
Module: At The Bank
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 4+5+7+6+5+5= 31
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Interesting day – though my own technique was pretty dry, there were some great moments which brought the learners to the board – one part was an extended exploration of names from different cultures, super cool. Another part was when we started doing percentages in English. I kept it very straightforward – 10% of 1000, 20% of 1000, then doubled it to 2000. As one learner remarked – it’s like English and math at the same time. And, I added – at the bank too.

The loan application document was useful and interesting, but the image quality wasn’t that good. Much of the class was a dictation of terms like Loan, Borrower, Lender, Interest Rate. They were very interested (and the group was relatively high skill, as well).

Date of Class: Oct. 22
Day of Class: Tues
PI: ML
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Maps and Addresses
How Many Learners: 8 (1 new)
Score: 13
What happened: I wanted to focus more on speaking and dialogue with this lesson and I think it was moderately successful. While I’m still a long ways out (it seems) from having flowing, truly easy banter, I think it went pretty well. Using variations on a theme of dictating “Where do you live?” “Where does he live?” “Do you live on ___ street?” and their own street names written on flashcards, it offered a lot of speaking practice, especially with ordinal numbers (every student but one lived on a numbered street!), which is a continually challenging concept for them. Lots of questions, lots of effort at correct pronunciation.
I’m still learning what modifications to make to my lesson plan when there is no SI- to make it easier on me and less confusing for the students. But that said, this class went much better than last time in that regard.

Date of Class: 10/21/13
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants: Jeff
Module: Nutrition
How Many Learners: 5
Score: 3+4+6+6+5+7 = 31
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): It was great to have Jeff again – but highlighted my lack of preparation – I thought he was going to be there on Wed! The group was really interesting, it was high skill enough that I immediately went past the alphabet, and we started working on what we had for breakfast. Most of the time was spent dictating how you make various egg dishes -one learner even added a dish, sunny side up, I totally forgot. Yolk. White. Scramble. Essentially the entire lesson was dictate an instruction, say it out loud, ask if people like it, then explore any useful shallow tangents (tangents that are productive for 10 minutes, but don’t take the class in another direction completely).

My preparation was pretty poor – no lesson plan, arrived 10 min early, and had no materials; and I forgot Jeff was coming. Considering, it was a nice practice session. And one of the learners really enjoyed practicing “Look Here!”