Date of Class: March 31
Day of Class: Monday
Time of Class 6pm
MC: Mary Louise
DJ: Sam Bones
Assistants: Nancy, Matt
Module: Nutrition
How Many Learners: 8
Score: 39
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
The class went well. There was the “getting used to the other” since Mary Louise and Sam were meeting for the first time. But there was enough to keep all 4 of us busy. There are a few higher level learners with a few lower level, and then 1 or 2 very newbies, and we interspersed everyone to make sure that each had easy access to help the other.

Date of Class: 04-02-14
Day of Class: Weds
Time of Class 6:00 pm
MC: Joshua
DJ:
Assistants:Rodolfo & Benjamin
Module: In the Kitchen
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 5+4+5+6+5+2= 27
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): The class was really a fun class. Rodolfo was absolutely essential in his gifted ability to connect across cultural barriers and really help the learners who are newest to English language. They also seem to really enjoy connecting with him quite a bit. The smaller class size was nice because it gave me the opportunity to focus a bit more on giving individual attention to the learners. toward the end we played a matching game with different vocabulary words in the kitchen. The game was good fun, but there was too much vocabulary on the table to easily make matches. When folks got a match, they earned a cookie. The learners seemed to really enjoy the game… but making the matches was slow going. In the future I will use this game with a smaller number of matching cards at a time. Otherwise it was a great activity… I just need to hone in the usefulness of it.

Date of Class:April 16th
Day of Class:Wednesday
Time of Class6:00
MC:Joshua
DJ:Sam Bones
Assistants:n/a
Module:In the kitchen
How Many Learners:9
Score:33
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):Lots of hilarious laughter with the muffin tin! Joshua had a nice lesson plan worked out, but we ended not following most of it. We did some dictation, but really didn’t get into role-play since the “this is a…” took so long to get through. Had a rousing game of Concentration, with candy as a prize for scoring a match…and as the 7:30 mark came, there were still some matches to be made, and nobody wanted to quit playing, so we went over a bit. They really like their games. Fun evening, nice to get to meet Joshua, and we will have great classes together for the next 4 weeks.

Date of Class: 04/23/2014
Day of Class: Wednesday
Time of Class 6:30
MC: Sambones
DJ: Joshua
Assistants: Rodolfo
Module: In The Kitchen
How Many Learners: 8
Score: 9+8+8+8+8+10 = 51
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): This was Sambones’ silent class. It went really well. The best part about the class overall in my opinion is that the learners seemed to really have a lot of fun watching me and Rodolfo try to figure out what Sambones was directing. It made for a really different learning atmosphere that made it VERY ok for everyone to be confused at times. Sambones put a lot of effort into her preparation and a lot of thought into how she would communicate without words. Every week the class gets more engaging, more entertaining, and more successful. I feel like there are some great relationships being cultivated between the learners and the teachers.

This topic was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Patrick McDade.

Date of Class:April 30, 2014
Day of Class: Wednesday
Time of Class 6:00
MC: Joshua
DJ: Sam Bones
Assistants:
Module: Emergency Preparedness
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 32
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific):
Both Joshua and I were impressed that, as nice as yesterday was, that anyone showed up for class. It just goes to show how important it is for them to commit to learning the English language, and they work very hard at it. One of our students has only been here for 2 months and is struggling a bit to understand the whole “What is your address” concept, such as what, actually, does “address” refer to? Anyways, Joshua really syncs well with this group, and I can see how the students are warming up to his gentle ways. Our only Spanish-speaker holds up well here, and willing to help and share with the others-whose language doesn’t resemble anything close to Spanish, or English! However, this group loves to laugh, and especially they love anything that is a game-like activity.

Date of Class: 05/07/2014
Day of Class: Wednesday
Time of Class 6:00 pm
MC: Joshua
DJ:
Assistants: Rodolfo
Module: Emergency Preparedness
How Many Learners: 7
Score: 35
What happened This was a really productive class. The participants are making great progress in their language capabilities and also their understanding of the classroom interaction. This class was one of the more rewarding for me. I feel like I’m learning just as much as they are. There are two learners in particular who have dramatic improvement in their communication over the last month or two. This week’s activities were focused on emergency preparedness vocabulary.

Date of Class: 05/14/2014
Day of Class: Weds
Time of Class: Evening
MC: Sambones
DJ: Joshua
Assistants: Rodolfo
Module: Emergency Preparedness
How Many Learners: 6
Score: 10+7+7+7+6+10=47
What happened: This was Sambones’ second silent class. Sambones was very creative with her lesson and brought many outside, real-world materials that were all appropriate for the module. I’m very impressed with the consistent improvement each of the learners are making in spelling, pronunciation, confidence, and willingness to try. Despite having suffered personal loss today, Sambones stepped up to the challenge and taught a very productive class. We did several dictations of emergency preparedness vocabulary words and phrases. We went over items contained in an emergency preparedness supply kit. We went through the motions of what to do in an earthquake and a tsunami and learned vocabulary associated with those disasters.