Date of Class: 10/15/13
Day of Class: Tues
PI: ML
SI: Brooke
Assistants:
Module: Maps and Addresses
How Many Learners: 5
Score: 10-11
What happened: This was the smallest class I’ve taught in awhile- with 2 new learners! With the smallness, came some great teaching and learning (for me) moments. I didn’t really care for how I did the dictations; I kept thinking I needed to somehow take advantage of the intimate, small class and stop being so ‘by the book’ with my lesson plan and dialogues, but i couldn’t think of anything. (Later, Brooke suggested just expanding them to a couple more lines- a great idea). However, the students definitely got a lot of practice speaking, which was fantastic. What I liked about the small class can be summed up like this: one of the dialogues involved the phrase “on 121st ave” and brought up some questions about ordinal numbers generally. Though we’ve practiced them before, and they were on my ‘if time’ list, there was such an obvious desire to know/understand more about them that I switched the plan and we practiced and reviewed the numbers for a while. And from this, I witnessed two learners, one brand-new and higher level, the other much lower, have little lightbulb moments- in fairly different ways- when they caught on to a certain concept about the numbers. It really made my day, actually. And had the class been larger, I don’t know that we would have ever gotten to that point- shyness may have prevented the questions from even being asked, any number of distractions may have prevented me from answering so completely and a larger disparity in students’ needs may have prevented me from totally switching gears. So, in the end, I think was good. . .and I think we took advantage of the small class environment.

Date of Class: 10/14/13
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Nutrition
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 3+5+5+5+5+4 = 27
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): I didn’t have a lesson, so it was not as exciting as it could have been. But there was some laughing, and I love the multilingual group! Two learners shared job information, so that’s always awesome. The coolest thing, though, was an old friend and fantastic community organizer getting a job at the library – she is on the board of MECHA and well-connected – I’m hoping this will help us collaborate in the future!

Date of Class: Oct. 8
Day of Class: Tuesday
PI: ML
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Maps and Addresses
How Many Learners: 12
Score: 9.5
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Today’s class was a whirlwind. 12 students, 3 of which were new and my first class with no SI. In addition, I tried to get everyone started on a loyalty card, which took a longer time than expected and which I probably did in the most cumbersome way possible. Once we finally started, I realized that the lesson I had prepared was somewhat more confusing and probably a bit too complex than what was appropriate for a class with the aforementioned factors. Normally, I would switch things up as class progressed but I felt so distracted and frazzled just trying to manage all the students, their questions, and the activities that I wasn’t doing a good job of changing/responding to the class energy by skipping/picking certain activities. Overall it went ok- the activities were interesting and engaging- but I know I confused some students, especially in the activity where they traced a map route from verbal directions (‘start at X, turn left, turn right, etc), I did hear myself using way too much explanation and I did lean on other students to explain some things in Spanish to the lower level learners. Not that I didn’t know this before, but having a secondary instructor or assistant is invaluable!

Date: 10/1/13
PI: ML
SI: Jacob
Assistants:
Module: Maps and Addresses
How Many Learners: 7
Score: 14
What Did I Learn: What a difference a module can make? Is that fair to say? Or maybe it’s just my feelings toward the module? Anyway, on the heels of In the Neighborhood (which I liked a lot and went over very well in class), Maps and Addresses is also great thus far. There are so many activity possibilities that really seem to engage and interest the students, are relevant to their lives and, perhaps because of the high engagement, take more time than expected in the class. Ordinal numbers being a perfect example- the last 3 classes have spent some time on some variation of learning these and they continue to challenge the students (except Santos!) and, seemingly, keep energy and involvement high. Today’s class spent time on these, as well as vocab (turn right, turn left, go forward, stop, around the corner, etc). We split the class into two groups and did TPR with this vocab. I knew I wanted to somehow layer the two- TPR and vocab- but wasn’t sure how it would all play out. Since we had a smaller group, having two very small groups seemed to work really well. The students (and Jacob and I) were having a ball. And so, for the second time, I did not even get around to the dialogue or directions. . .but there is next time. And, it was a great, fun class overall.

Date of Class: 12/11/13
Day of Class: Wednesday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Shopping
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 4+6+7+7+5+5=34
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): a very nice class. One new learner, really nervous, came with his brother – nice conversations with folks, they really liked the shopping ad. One learner who has been with us for 6 months or more, really showing improvement, and she knows it.. her pronunciation – and all the better because a month ago, I thought we had scared her away. Her confidence was clearly boosted by the fact that she knew something about the shopping/kitchen material we were working with.

Date of Class: 12/4/13
Day of Class: Wednesday
PI: Patrik
SI: Lorraine
Assistants:
Module: Shopping
How Many Learners: 3
Score: 7+5+5+6+5+7=34
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Wasn’t sure how it was going to go..very cold night, and coming back from a holiday. But we had two returnees, and one newbie.. great to see a new face in there! Worked with the Shopping ads – the 3rd time in the last two days. Pushed one of the learners who struggles a little further – and she’s doing it, too! But almost got to the point where it felt a little too hard.. was having her try to stop thinking and second guessing herself and just make a try. Took a little bit to get folks going, but got them warmed up and revved up and the time went by quickly. Lots of interest in this group in the advertisements and coupons.

Rockwood Station
Date of Class: 21 November, 2013
Day of Class: Thursday
PI: Alexander
SI:
Assistants:
Module: Telephone Etiquette
How Many Learners: 9
Score: 32
What happened:
-We used toy phones to yell and spell names with ‘is calling’ or ‘who’s calling?’ attached and went around the group with several variations of that.

-We used toys phones to leave a voice mail message (script)

-We wrote a short script of two people talking about a missed phone call and follow up call.

-We wrote down a song, “Hello, My Baby”, copied, repeated, and sang (slowly) many times after watching video.

-Practiced verbs, some related to ‘phones and phoning, using sign language.
-I think they all had a good time, there was laughter. People liked the toys.