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: 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 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: 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: 10/16/13
Day of Class: Wednesday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants: Jeff, Linda
Module: Mr Fix It
How Many Learners: 10
Score: 4+6+7+7+7+4= 35
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): though my self score doesn’t reflect it, this was a great class. The two assistants were fantastic, and the people kept coming in. I used a pictorial maintenance book I found in the library to work with vocabulary. I didn’t create a strong lesson plan, which lessened the impact we could have had, but it was great that the learners really connected with each other, I moved them around to maximize their connection.. the class got crowded at a single table, eventually, but it still worked. The relevance of the materials was astounding – one learner actually had a broken refrigerator, so she was able to have a language experience right there, and we helped her with that. Another learner just moved and was changing her electric company account right there. The biggest bummer is that one of the assistants had their bike stolen during the class, really a bummer.

Date of Class: 10/21/2013
Day of Class: Monday
PI: Todd
SI:
Assistants:
Module: In the Neighborhood
How Many Learners: 9
Score:
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): Had a lot of returning students plus one observer, Rebecca. It was a really satisfying class in that, while I had a lesson plan, we went off in different directions a few times because students had a lot of questions about everyday English-this brought out lots of discussion. Very energetic and fun. We did an 8 sentence story unscramble that, even though it was very simple, was challenging enough that it took the class time to work it out. I had some very common idioms in the story which surprisingly were a little challenging for them, so that led to more talking amongst the students and I. The students did lots of writing (on their own) which was a good sign-they really wanted to remember everything. Finished with word bingo, which I hadn’t planned, because it fit the class level and interest. On a side note, the Library put us into a smaller classroom because they were using our normal one. It wasn’t necessarily a problem because we all fit in, but had there been more students it would have been very cramped. On the plus side, it has a better whiteboard.

Date of Class: 10/23/13
Day of Class: Wednesday
PI: Patrik
SI:
Assistants: Polly, Linda, Craig
Module: Nutrition
How Many Learners: 8
Score: 3+4+4+4+5+4=24
What happened (as short or as long as you like, but be specific): This was such an interesting class, many assistants, and figuring out how to keep them busy. I tried some new things, too – drawing a picture of ones house, I got one of the learners names wrong, and another learner was really frustrated because the other Russian speakers weren’t there, and how hard we made her work. If I had planned better, I would have been able to anticipate some of these variables. Overall, not a terrible class, but not inspiring, somewhat confusing for the new assistants, and frustrating or disconnecting for some.